Mr. E. L. Layard on the Ornithology of Ceylon. 26& 



The morning air was deliciously cool and bracing, both from the; 

 altitude and a shower of rain that had>fallen over night, and 1 

 walked joyously along, deUghted with my birds, and the luxuriant 

 vegetation around me ; at length under a bank I saw a fine shell, 

 then new to my collection ; my attention was thus confined to 

 the side of the road in hopes of finding another, and uncon- 

 sciously I reached a bend at the summit of the hill. Here a 

 singular scene presented itself. I stood on the edge of an 

 abrupt descent ; at the bottom of this, stretched like an ocean, lay 

 a thick fog bank, thi-ough which the tops of some lofty cocoa- 

 nut trees here and there appeared, like beacons marking the site 

 of submerged villages ; all was silent, save that the occasional 

 voice of some denizen of the grove showed that the feathered 

 tribes were awakening. Suddenly the sun broke forth in its 

 splendour, and with it a light breeze sprung up, the fog seemed 

 endued with life, and heaved and rolled in noble masses ; pre- 

 sently it rose a little and moved away down the valley melted 

 into air, and a glorious landscape burst upon me. Below, 

 meandering hke a silver ribbon through the rich green patnas, 

 wound the Mahavilla Ganga ; here brawling over rocks, it fell in 

 mimic cascades whitening the surface with foam, or flowing 

 stUly, its darkness betrayed its depths. Far away stretched a 

 noble expanse of patna, broken occasionally by belts of forest, 

 and dotted with small clumps or isolated trees, till it was bounded 

 by a lofty range of mountains, whose tops glowed in the light of 

 the morning sun as if bathed in flame. Behind me and on the 

 ledge where I stood, some gigantic forest trees reared their heads, 

 their aged trunks covered with ferns and air plants. Imme- 

 diately below my feet, reaching to the river, stretched a dense 

 mass of foliage, relieved here and there by the graceful feathery 

 branches of the areka or jaggery palm, or the vast leaves of the 

 talipat. All nature seemed to awake — the woodlands resounded 

 with the cooing of doves and the voices of hidden songsters. 

 The green and yeUow and red lizards [Calotes viridis and versi' 

 color) crept up the topmost sprays of the bushes and sunned 

 themselves, while the heavy flight of the gorgeous black and 

 yellow butterfly {Papilio darsius), dipping into the mingled 

 flowers which tempted it, contrasted pleasingly with the light 

 and airy floating of the sombre-hued sylph butterfly {Hestia 

 hyblea). I gazed with delight upon a scene so fair and so con- 

 genial to the eye of a field naturalist, till, unpleasantly re- 

 minded by a sharp pricking about my legs, that I stood too 

 near the grassy margin of the road and was in the midst of land 

 leeches, who delight in blood and not in scenery, I was covered 

 with them, having forgotten my leech gaiters, and had no re- 

 source but to retreat to a lai-ge stone, and pick them off as well 



