ClIAP. II.] 



BULBUL. 



169 



the crest on its head, is called by the Singhalese the 

 " Konda Coorola," or Tuft bird, is regarded by the na- 

 tives as the most '^ game" of all birds ; and tlie training it 

 to fight was one of the dnties entrnsted by the Kings of 

 Kandy to the Kooroowa, or Bird Head-man. For this 

 purpose the Bulbul is taken from the nest as soon as the 

 sex is distinguishable by the tufted crown ; and being 

 secured by a string, is taught to fly from hand to hand 

 of its keeper. Wlien pitted agamst an antagonist, such 

 is the obstinate couras-e of this httle creature that it 

 will sink fi-om exhaustion rather than release its hold. 

 This propensity, and the ordinaiy character of its notes, 

 render it impossible that the Bulbul of India can be 

 identical Avith the Bulbul of Iran, the " Bird of a Thou- 

 sand Songs," ^ of which poets say that its dehcate 

 passion for the rose gives a plaintive character to its 

 note. 



Tailor-Bird. — The Weaver-Bird. — The tailor-bird^ 

 having completed her nest, sewing together the leaves 

 by passing tlirough them a cotton thread twisted by the 

 creature herself, leaps from branch to branch to testify 

 her happiness by a clear and merry note ; and the 

 Indian weaver^, a still more ingenious artist, having 

 woven its dweUing with grass somethmg into the form 

 of a bottle, with a prolonged neck, hangs it fi'om a pro- 

 jecting branch with its entrance inverted so as to baffle 

 the approaches of its enemies, the tree snakes and other 

 reptiles. The natives assert that the male bhxl carries 

 fire flies to the nest, fastening them to its sides by a 

 particle of soft mud, and ]\ii\ Layard assures me that 

 although he has never succeeded in finding the fire fly, 



^ " Hazardmitaum" the Persian 

 name for the bulbul. ''The Per- 

 sians," according to Zakary ben Mo- 

 hamed al Caswini, '' say "the bulbul 

 has a passion for the rose, and la- 

 ments and cries when he sees it 

 pulled." — Ouseley's Oriental Collec- 

 tions, vol. i. p. 16. According to Pallas 



it is the true nightingale of Europe, 

 Syhaa lusciuia, which the Ai-menians 

 call boulboul, and the Crim-Tai'tars 

 hyl-hijl-i, 



^ Orthotomus long-icauda, Gmel. 



3 Ploceus baya, Blyth. ; P. Philip- 

 pinus, Auct, 



