Chap. VIII.] SWALLOWS. — SUN BIRDS. 
249 
taining them have been found far in the interior, a fact 
which complicates the still unexplained mystery of the 
composition of their nest; and, notwithstanding the 
power of wing possessed by these birds, adds something 
to the difficulty of believing that it consists of glutinous 
material obtained from algse. 1 In the nests brought 
to me there was no trace of organisation; and the 
original material, whatever it be, is so elaborated by 
the swallow as to present somewhat the appearance and 
consistency of strings of isinglass. The quantity of 
these nests exported from Ceylon is trifling. 
Kingfishers. — In solitary places, where no sound 
breaks the silence except the gurgle of the river as 
it sweeps round the rocks, the lonely Kingfisher, the 
emblem of vigilance and patience, sits upon an over- 
hanging branch, his turquoise plumage hardly less 
intense in its lustre than the deep blue of the sky 
above him ; and so intent is his watch upon the passing 
fish that intrusion fails to scare him from his post. 
Sun Birds. — In the gardens the tiny Sun Birds 2 
(known as the Humming Birds of Ceylon) hover all 
day long, attracted to the plants, over which they hang 
poised on their glittering wings, and inserting their 
curved beaks to extract the insects that nestle in the 
flowers. 
Perhaps the most graceful of the birds of Ceylon in form 
and motions, and the most chaste in colouring, is the 
one which Europeans call " the Bird of Paradise," 3 and 
1 An epitome of what has been found the nests of the Esculent 
written on this subject will be Swallow eighty miles distant from 
found in Dr. Horsfield's Catalogue the sea. 
of the Birds in the E. I. Comp. 2 Nectarina Zeylanica, Linn. 
Museum, vol. i. p. 101, &c. Mr. 8 Tchitrea paradisi, Linn. 
Morris assures me, that he has 
