238 SPOLIA ZBYLANICA. 



11. Subsidence at Kokkilay on the East Coast. — The village of 

 Kokkatoduvay lies on the uarrow strip of land which separates 

 Kokkilay lagoon from the sea and is some half a mile from 

 the latter. Across a small " villu " from the village and right on 

 the sands just above highwater mark, where a very moderate 

 north-east gale would carry the waves, is a large area containing 

 a deposit of ancient pottery debris, undoubtedly the site of an old 

 settlement. This, in conjunction with an existing tradition that 

 Kokkilay lagoon was once a stretch of paddy fields, is very strong 

 evidence of the land having subsided. 



The pottery is old — how old it is impossible to say ; perhaps a 

 thousand years, perhaps more. But the land hereabouts must 

 have also risen and that long before the time of the potters. For 

 the coast is strewn with fossils, sea-shells imbedded in sandstone 

 which was formed I suppose in a considerable depth of water. 

 Thus at this little village we have evidence, natural and artificial, 

 of two alterations, in opposite directions, from the present level. 



JOHN STILL. 

 Anuradhapura, April 19, 1905. 



12. Association of a crocodile with a tortoise. — Early in March, 

 1905, 1 was at a village named Kanjuramotai, a few miles south of 

 Nedunkeni in the Mullaittivu District. Two of the villagers 

 showed me a few ruins in the jungle, just by the edge of their 

 paddy fields ; and among them was an old well. This had been 

 dug out six or eight years ago, and then abandoned, after which 

 the sides had collapsed inwards leaving a hollow about 10 feet 

 deep, circular in shape, and 12 or 1.5 feet in diameter. Its sides 

 are perpendicular save at the* very top where they overhang, held 

 up by thf» matted roots of the undergrowth, so that the place is a 

 regular trap. 



In the well there are two captives, both well known to the 

 villagers : one a crocodile, about six feet long, the other a very 

 large mud tortoise {Nicoria trijugd). The villagers aver that the* 

 crocodile got in during the rainy weather three years ago and that 

 the tortoise has been there for six months. Neither can get food 

 (except perhaps frogs), neither can get out; and in the dry 

 weather they must go without water for months on end. 



The turtle has no fear of the crocodile, but when stirred up will 

 walk np to his snout. The crocodile, which is miserably thin, 

 resents being stirred up by hissing and snapping his jaws, but 



