the Western and Southern districts; taking up their abode in some shady com¬ 
pound encircling the native cultivator’s house on the nearest rise to his 
ancestral paddy fields, these noisy birds commence early in the mornings to 
call one another, and make the woods resound with their guttural cries. 
Its loud scale notes, commencing in measured time and increasing in rapio 
ity and loudness, must be known to every European in the low country, and 
give rise to its native name of Kotoruwa, which has a slight resemblance 10 
some of these syllables in the scale; they much remind one of the commence¬ 
ment of the laugh of the great Brown Kingfisher or Laughing Jackass of Aus¬ 
tral la. 
The food of this Barbet consists of every sort of tree fruit, seed, or 
berry, nothing seems to come amiss to it, for there is no tree that Dears 
fruit that it may not sometimes be found in. It is not very gregarious, on 
the contrary, it is unsociably inclined towards its fellows, and more than 
two or three are seldom found in the salie tree. It is active in its move¬ 
ments, seizing fruit that may be firmly attached to the stalk, and swinging 
its body from its perch, it wrenches off the coveted morsel; fruit and ber¬ 
ries are swallowed whole, and in the North the favourite food is the berry 
of the Banyan or the luscious seed of the Palu or ironwood tree, of wnioh tie 
Ceylon Bear (Prochllus Labiatus), is so fond. 
It perches with its body Inclining to the horizontal, and the head thrust 
forward in an attitude of watchfulness, unlike the smaller Barbets, who sit 
bolt upright, and twist the head stupidly from side to side. Coleopterous 
insects are likewise devoured by it, and in captivity this Barbet has been 
known to exhibit, as some toucans do, a carnivorous tendency. 
An Interesting account is contained in Layard’s notes on the ornithology 
of Ceylon. He writes, "One kept in a large aviary in Colombo destroyed all 
the little Amadinae placed with it. Not content with snapping them up when 
within his reach, he would lie in wait for them behind a thick bush on the 
feeding trough, pounce on them unawares, and after beating them on the grouni 
for a little, would swallow them whole. When this cannibal came into my 
possession he was confined In a smaller cage than that in which he had at 
first been secured; this seemed to displease him and he went to work to finu 
some means of escape; he narrowly examined, every side and corner to discover 
a weak spot, and having detected one, applied hlmseir vigorously to oore a 
hole through it as a- Woodpecker would have done; Grasping the bars ,1th his 
feet, he swung himself round, bringing his whole weight to bear upon his 
bill, which he used as a pickaxe, till the house resounded with his rapid 
