NO. 42.— 1891.] 



PROCEEDINGS. 



General Meeting. 

 September 30, 1891. 

 Present : 



The Lord Bishop of Colombo, President, in the Chair. 



Mr. A. M. Ferguson, C.M.G. 

 Mr. D. W. Ferguson, M.R.A.S. 



Mr. F. C. Roles. 



Mr. W. N. S. Asserappa. 



Mr. E. S. W. Senathi Raja, M.R.A.S., &c, Honorary Secretary. 

 Mr. Gerard A. Joseph, Assistant Secretary. 



Visitors : one lady and thirteen gentlemen. 



Business. 



1. Read and confirmed Minutes of the General Meeting 

 held on June 9, 1891. 



2. The Honorary Secretary laid on the table a large 

 number of new books received. He stated that, besides 

 several books purchased and others received in the shape of 

 donations from the Secretary of State in Council for India 

 and from the Ceylon Government, many new exchanges had 

 been made, the most notable among which were a complete 

 set of publications of the Royal Society of New South 

 Wales (fifteen volumes) ; a complete set, numbering about 

 thirty volumes, from Les Memoires de la Societe Zoologique 

 de France ; Smithsonian Reports of the U. S. Government, 

 and the publications of the Geological Survey. 



3. The Assistant Secretary read a Paper by Mr. Frederick 

 Lewis on — 



NOTES ON EGGS AND NESTS OF BRACHYPTERNUS 

 CEYLONUS AND TOCKUS GINGALENSIS. 



By F. Lewis, Esq. 



In his magnificent work, " The Birds of Ceylon," Major 

 Legge says on the subject of the nesting of the red wood- 

 pecker (vol. I., p. 204): "In the south of Ceylon the red 

 woodpecker breeds from February until June, and not 

 unfrequently nests in the trunk of a dead cocoanut tree, 

 cutting a round entrance and excavating the decaying part 

 of the tree for some distance below it. I have never been 

 able to procure the eggs, although the bird is so common." 



During April this year, while engaged in inspecting forest 

 lots in the village of Madampe, in the Atakalan Korale of the 



