Chap. II.] PIGEONS. 173 



in tlie coco-nut trees wliicli overhang the bazaar, that 

 theu^ noise drowned the Babel of tongues bargaining 

 for the evening provisions. Hearing of the swarms 

 which resorted to this spot, I posted myself on a bridge 

 some half mile distant, and attempted to count the flocks 

 which came from a single dkection to the eastward. 

 About fom' o'clock in the afternoon, stragghng parties 

 began to wend towards home, and in the course of 

 half an hoiu: the ciu'rent fairly set hi. But I soon 

 found that I had no longer distinct flocks to count, it 

 became one hving screaming stream. Some flew liigh 

 in the air till right above their homes, and dived ab- 

 ruptly downward with many evolutions till on a level 

 with the trees ; others kept along the ground and dashed 

 close by my face witli the rapidity of thouglit, thek 

 brilliant plumage shining with an exquisite lustre in 

 the sun-light. I waited on the spot till the evening 

 closed, when I could hear, though no longer distinguish, 

 the birds fighting for their perches, and on firing a shot 

 they rose wiih a noise hke the ' rushing of a mighty 

 wind,' but soon settled again, and such a din com- 

 menced as I shall never forget ; the shrill screams of the 

 birds, the fluttering of their innumerable wings, and the 

 rusthng of the leaves of the palm trees, Avas almost 

 deafening, and I was glad at last to escape to the Govern- 

 ment Eest House. " ^ 



IV. CoLUMBiD^. Pigeons. — Of pigeons and doves 

 there are at least a dozen species ; some hving entirely 

 on trees ^ and never alighting on the ground ; others, 

 notwithstanding the abundance of food and warmth, are 

 migratory^, allured, as the Singhalese allege, by the 

 ripening of the cmnamon berries, and hence one species 

 is known in the southern pro\dnces as the " Cinnamon 

 Dove." Others feed on the fruits of the banyan : and 

 it is probably to their instrumentahty that this mar- 



^ Annals of Nat. Hist. vol. xiii. I ^ Ahocomits puniceus, the " Season 

 p. 263. I Pigeon " of Ceylon, so called from its 



^ Treron bicincta, Jcrd. \ periodical anival and depai-titre. 



