CHAP. II.] PIGEONS. 173 



in the coco-nut trees which overhang the bazaar, that 

 their noise drowned the Babel of tongues bargaining 

 for the evening provisions. Hearing of the swarms 

 that 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 direction to the eastward. 

 About four o'clock in the afternoon, straggling parties 

 began to wend towards home, and in the course of 

 half an hour~the current fairly set in. But I soon 

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

 became one living screaming stream. Some flew high 

 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 with the rapidity of thought, their 

 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 with a noise like 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 

 rustling of the leaves of the palm trees, was almost 

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

 ment Best House. " 1 



IV. COLUMBINE. Pigeons. Of pigeons and doves 

 there are at least a dozen species ; some living entirely 

 on trees 2 and never alighting on the ground ; others, 

 notwithstanding the abundance of food and warmth, are 

 migratory 3 , allured, as the Singhalese allege, by the 

 ripening of the cinnamon berries, and hence one species 

 is known in the southern provinces as the " Cinnamon 

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

 it is probably to their instrumentality that this mar- 



1 Annals of Nat. Hist. vol. xiii. j 3 Alsoconms pmriceus, the " Season 

 p. 2G3. i Pigeon " of Ceylon, so called from its 



2 Treron bicincta, Jcrd. I periodical arrival and departure. 



