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shaded with red, purple, and blue, finishes in a black circle round 
the neck, from whence to its long tapering tail the plumage is a 
lively green: the parrots are not so beautiful, but their number is 
astonishing: they are as much dreaded at the time of harvest as a 
Mahratta army, or a host of locusts: they darken the air by their 
numbers, and alighting on a rice-field, in a few hours carry off 
every ear of ripe corn to their hiding places in the mountains: I 
have often witnessed these depredations, and thought of Pope’s 
significant queries: 
Is thine alone the seed that strews the plain ? 
The birds of heaven shall vindicate their grain. 
Thine the full harvest of the golden year? 
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer. 
The bird of Attinga, or pied bird of Paradise (picus orientalis, 
Lin.) is common in the queen of Attinga’s dominions; its elegant 
form, purple crest, snowy plumage, and long tail, constitute it one 
of the most beautiful in the Indian ornithology. 
Like most other countries between the tropics, Anjengo is in- 
fested by a variety of noxious insects and reptiles: the most curious 
is a small black snake, called by the natives the crescent snake, 
though I should rather class it with the polypus: it is two or three 
inches long, with a head shaped like a crescent; from the outer 
line of the semicircle are small teeth, easily discerned through a 
microscope; I could not discover any eyes: on cutting off this 
head, the other end immediately supplied the loss; it moves in a 
retrograde manner, and lives after the amputation: it is entirely 
covered with a glossy slime, which, like the snail, it leaves where- 
ever it goes: this is said to be poisonous, and the bite mortal; a 
