cia 



ISLAND OF CEYLON. 



thoufand draclwue-i or^C-S^- 5- lo- Santos poffibly was the next 

 place they were known at, where they were preferved about the 

 temple of Juno^ being birds iacred to that goddefs : but their 

 life was afterwards permitted to mortals, for GelliuSi in his 

 NoBes Attica, c. 16, commends the excellency of the Sam'um 

 peacocks. 



But they were known in Judo'a many years before the days 

 oi Alexander. The monarch, firft in all human wifdom, and 

 who fhined pre-eminently in the knowlege of natural hiftory, 

 imported them in his I'harJJjiJ]} navies, which made a three 

 yenrs voyage to procure for Solomon the rich produdlions of the 

 Eaft, and the objeds of the ftudy he fo fondly cultivated. There 

 can be no doubt but that the birds imported were peacocks, not 

 Mthiopian parrots, as has been conjectured, natives of a country 

 nearly bordering on the very fea from which his navies took 

 their departure. Apes, ebony, and fpices might have been 

 procured from ylfrica, on one hand, or Arabia on the other ; 

 but peacocks and pretious ftones, feera at all times the mono- 

 poly of India, 



Wood-Fowl. The Habun Koekella, or wood-fowl, Ind. Zool. tab. vii. fecond 

 edition, is found near Colombo, but is not common. It is at 

 once diftinguifhed by its double fpurs : in lize it is equal to a 

 common fowl. 



jgjg^ Among the aquatic birds is the great white-headed. Ibis, Ind. 



Zool. tab. xi, w^hich makes a fnapping noife with its bill; it lofes 

 its fine rofeate color in the rainy feafon. Allied to the wood 

 curlew of the ArHic Zoology, ii. N° 360, a native of the Brajils, 

 and fouthern parts of North America. 



In 



