INTRODUCTION. 
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 4 Histoire 
Naturelle des Barbes,’ one of which (the Yellow-fronted Barbet) 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, It. 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 woild 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 4 The Ibis ’ : — 44 1 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 4 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 
R. 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. 
44 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 4 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. 
44 My collecting-trips never extended to those hill-parts where Dr. Kelaart collected, Nuwara 
Elliya, &c. I was twice in Kandy, once at 4 Carolina,’ an estate near Ambegamoa, and once as far 
as Gillymally, via Ratnapura.” 
Besides this, Layard, as he informs me in epist., collected from Colombo to Jaffna, via 
Puttalam, Jaffna to Kandy on the Central Road, Colombo to Galle, and round to Hambantota, 
