874' THE TKOPICAL WORLD. 



din resembles the blnws of a smith hammering a cauldron, 

 or the strokes of the great orange-coloured Woodpecker [Bra- 

 chypterus aurantius\ as it beats the decaying trees in search of 

 insects ; but of all the yells that fancy can imagine there is none 

 to equal that of the Singhalese Devil-bird or Gualama. ' Its 

 ordinary cry,' says Mr. Mitford, ' is a magnificent clear shout 

 like that of a human being, which can be heard at a great dis- 

 tance, and has a fine effect in the silence of the closing night. 

 It has another cry like that of a hen just caught, but the sounds 

 which have earned for it its bad name, and which I have heard 

 but once to perfection, are indescribable ; the most appalling 

 that can be imagined, and scarcely to be heard without shud- 

 dering. I can only compare it to a boy in torture, whose 

 screams are beins' stopped by being strangled. On hearing this 

 dreadful note the terrified Singhalese hurries from the spot, 

 for should he chance to see the bird of ill omen he knows that 

 his death is nigh. A servant of Mr. Baker's,"^ who had the 

 misfortune of seeing the dreaded gualama, from that moment 

 took no food, and thus fell a victim to his superstitious despair. 

 This horror of the natives explains the circumstance that it is 

 not yet perfectly ascertained whether the devil-bird is an owl 

 {Syrnium) or a night hawk. 



As if to make amends for this screech, the robin of Nuera- 

 ellia, the long-tailed thrush, the oriole, the dayal-bird, and 

 some others equally charming, make the forests and savannas 

 of the Kandyan country resound with the rich tones of their 

 musical calls. 



Besides the vast number of birds which, constantly attached 

 to a sultry climate, breed and live within the tropics, there are 

 others who at the approach of winter leave the uncongenial 

 regions of the temperate or frigid zones, and in search of food 

 and warmth migrate towards the equatorial world. Thus our 

 house swallow annually wanders as far as the unknown heart of 

 Africa, resting neither in Egypt nor in Nubia, nor even in the 

 insect-teeming steppes and woods of Eastern Sudan, and the 

 stork, who every spring appears as a welcome guest in the low- 

 lands of Northern Grermany, has frequently spent the previous 

 winter months in South Nubia and Darfur. In Kordofan (16° 



* Bakers 'Eight Years' Wanderings in Ceylon,' vol i. p. 167. 



