xxiv INTRODUCTION. 



jungles teem with insect-life, and all forest-birds are busy rearing their young. In very moist 

 districts, such as Ratnapura and the Passedun Korale, eggs may be found in August and even 

 September. Among early breeders in the Western Province may be cited the Barbets and Wood- 

 peckers. On the eastern side of the island many birds commence to breed in November and 

 December, while the heavy rains are falling ; but the season continues, nevertheless, throughout 

 the first three or four months of the year, and many birds may be found nesting, as on the western 

 side, in May and June. In the hills, and more particularly in the upper ranges, where the nights 

 are cold and frosty in January and February, the nesting-season commences at the end of March 

 or beginning of April, and continues until June and July, corresponding in this respect with the 

 breeding-time in temperate climates. In the north of Ceylon the larger Waders (Ardeidae), and 

 the Water-birds that breed with them, commence to nest in November ; but on the south-east 

 coast the season is later, the Heronries not being resorted to as a rule, I think, before January. 



Remarks on the plan of the Work. 1st. Classification. — The classification followed in this 

 work is totally different from that used by Jerdon, principally taken from Gray, and which 

 continues still in vogue among some Indian ornithologists. This is, I must confess, inconvenient 

 for Indian field-naturalists and collectors ; but as, in my opinion, it was not possible to follow 

 the above-mentioned system, and as the main object of this work is to endeavour to inculcate a 

 taste for ornithology among local students of the science in Ceylon, it behoved me to adopt that 

 system which appeared to me to accord best with the generally recognized affinities of the various 

 orders into which the Ceylonese ornis divides itself, and at the same time coincided best with the 

 classification employed by Jerdon, and which I am aware many who have taken up the study of 

 ornithology in Ceylon are familiar with. The divisions adopted have been Orders (in one case 

 also a Suborder), Families, and Subfamilies, and, in the great Order Passeres, Sections have also 

 been made use of. The Accipitres, or Birds of Prey, have been granted precedence simply as a 

 very favourite and specialized order, and because it has until recently been the practice among 

 English ornithologists to follow Gray and place them first. The Psittaci, or Parrots in the 

 possession of a cere and a very high degree of intelligence, seem to occupy a place not far distant 

 from the Hawks. The interesting order Picaria?, in which the posterior margin of the sternum 

 has a double notch, inasmuch as many of its groups possess zygodactyle feet, comes next the 

 Parrots. The satisfactory arrangement of the vast order Passeres presents great difficulties; 

 and here the system adopted by Mr. Wallace in classifying according to wing-structure has been 

 adopted. The Columbse (Pigeons) are a highly specialized order, and in preceding the Gallinae, or 

 Game-birds (aptly called Basores, or " Scratchers," by some systematists), must of necessity come 

 next the Passeres. In the arrangement of the remaining orders in the work (Gralla?, Gavias, 

 Anseres, Pygopodes, Herodiones, and Steganopodes) I have followed the bent of my own views 

 on the subject, considering these six orders as naturally divisible into two great classes — 

 1st, those with autophagous or independent young ; 2nd, those with heterophagous or dependent 

 young. It is impossible to follow a linear arrangement ; but nevertheless there are forms in 

 each of the orders composing these two divisions which possess affinities for one another, and 



