NOTES ON THE CLTMATE OF DIMBULA. 55 



fall on the Dimbula side while it is falling heavily in Ha- 

 putale and the Wilson's Bungalow district. 



As in all mountainous countries the heaviest rain falls 

 at the foot of the loftier or more isolated hills. Padu- 

 polla, the exact locality of which I am ignorant of, is 

 credited with the greatest fall of any station in the Island, 

 it having an average of 250 inches. Ratnapura with 146 

 inches can only equal places such as Sitawaka at the foot, 

 Sea Fell, the highest hill in England, and cannot compare 

 with the Khasia Hills in Assam, where some 600 inches of 

 rain fall during the year, 500 of which fell during the 

 seven months of the south-west monsoon. In this neigh- 

 bourhood Dr. Hooker measured 90 inches in three days. 



In a tropical country like this there is no budding or 

 fall of the leaf to mark the seasons, but there are some few 

 signs in the arrival and departure of birds and the blossom- 

 ing of certain plants. Of the first the arrival of snipe, fly 

 catchers, and wag tails are well known signs that the north- 

 east has set in, and many others can be found in the Notes 

 on Ceylon birds contributed by Capt. Legge in our Journal 

 for 1874. Of the latter coffee is, to those resident in the 

 hills, the most noteworthy; in Dimbulla it blossoms at 

 intervals from January to May. Other instances are peaches, 

 nil In, rhododendrons. In Colombo you are probably fami- 

 liar with others, with which I, with my slight knowledge of 

 the low country, am not acquainted. Health too varies much 

 with the season. Contrary to what might be expected, the 

 rainy season in the hills is far more healthy, both for natives 

 and Europeans than the dry. New arrivals suffer much at 

 first from exposure to the rain and wind, but old coolies do 

 not experience this, and the new comers soon recover, 

 excepting such as were utterly unfit to leave their home, 

 and for the rest of the rainy season all as a rule enjoy good 

 health. But in the north-east monsoon, the great variation 



