INTBODUCTION. ix 



Falcon " (Spizaetus ceylonensis) and the " Ceylonese Creeper " (Cinnyris zeylonicus) ; but these 

 were afterwards found to inhabit India ; and Levaillant figured two Barbets in his ' Histoire 

 Naturelle des Barbes,' one of which (the Yellow-fronted Bai'bet) is peculiar to the island. 



A long gap now occurs, when little or nothing was done to elucidate the avifauna of the 

 island ; and we hear nothing of the birds of Ceylon until Dr. Templeton, B.A., went out there 

 to be stationed. Taking a great interest in the natural history of his temporary home, and at 

 the same time not being a sportsman himself, he depended on his friends for specimens, which 

 he forwarded to Blyth, then curator of the Asiatic Society's Museum, Calcutta, for identification. 

 Fortunately for ornithology one of these friends was Mr. Edgar Leopold Layard, the now well- 

 known ornithologist, and at present Her Majesty's Consul at Noumea. This gentleman, on his 

 arrival in the island, set about collecting for Dr. Templeton, and, in his capacity as an officer in 

 Government service, had ample opportunity for travel and exploration of the jungle. 



The same zeal and untiring energy which has throughout life characterized Layard's career 

 was brought to bear upon the study of the Birds of Ceylon ; and in a few years his great 

 exertions in collecting bore fruit in a series of papers called " Notes on the Ornithology of 

 Ceylon," published in the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History,' which demonstrated to 

 the scientific world that Ceylon was far richer in birds than any one had supposed. The account 

 of his important labours is best given in his own words, contained in his kind notice of this 

 work in a late number of ' The Ibis ' : — " I arrived in Ceylon in March 1846, and for some time, 

 having no employment, amused my leisure in collecting for my more than friend, Dr. Templeton, 

 who had nursed me through a dangerous illness, and in whom I found a congenial spirit. My 

 chief attraction there was the glorious Lepidoptera of the island ; but I always carried a light 

 single-barrelled gun in a strap on my back to shoot specimens for the Doctor. He himself, like 

 Dr. Kelaart, never shot, but depended on his friends for specimens. I, of course, soon became 

 interested in the ' ornis ;' and on Templeton's leaving at the end of 1847 or beginning of 1848, he 

 begged me to take up his correspondence with the late Edward Blyth, then curator of the 

 B. A. S. Calcutta Museum. He left me his list of the species then known to exist in the island, 

 numbering 183, and Blyth's last letter to answer. From that day almost monthly letters passed 

 between the latter and myself, till I left Ceylon in 1853. The list and the correspondence are 

 still in my possession. 



" When I left I had brought up the list to 315 ; deduct from this the novelties added by 

 Kelaart, and some which I think he has wrongly identified (but which are included in my list in 

 the ' Annals and Magazine of Natural History '), 22 in number, and it leaves me the contributor 

 of 110 species to the Ceylonese ornis, examples of most of which fell to my own gun. 



" My collecting-trips never extended to those hill-parts where Dr. Kelaart collected, Nuwara 

 Elliya, &c. I was twice in Kandy, once at ' Carolina,' an estate near Ambegamoa, and once as far 

 as Gillymally, via Batnapura." 



Besides this, Layard, as he informs me in epist., collected from Colombo to Jaffna, via 

 Puttalam, Jaffna to Kandy on the Central Boad, Colombo to Galle, and round to Hambantota, 



