Birds in Southern Ceylon. 
25 
feathers of the breast have the centres greyish white, with 
a broad margin only of neutral grey, the white shafts show¬ 
ing conspicuously on the chest, and not on the lower parts 
as in the female. Our Hill-Mynah, Eulahes ptilogenys , is 
extraordinarily numerous in the forests of the Kookool Korle, 
and in parts of the Morowa Korle, and is found as low as 
1500 feet. 
There is nothing much to note with regard to the dis¬ 
tribution of the Fringillidse in our province, except that 
Munia rubronigra does not appear to exist here at all. 
Layard records it from Galle; but he surely could not have 
mistaken it for M. malacca , which is common in the heart 
of the many paddy-districts of the interior and nowhere 
else in Ceylon that I have visited. M. malabarica is an Indian 
bird in its tastes, liking a dry climate, such as the south-east 
coast and northern parts of the island. It is quite absent 
from our hill-district. I have now and then seen an isolated 
example of Estrelda amandava on the grass-land close to the 
Fort; the bird has in all probability become acclimatized here 
as at Colombo, by escaping from cages brought here from 
Bengal. Alauda gulgula is rare in this district, preferring, 
in company with all the peninsular birds found in the island, 
that remarkably Indo-Ceylonese region, the south-east coast. 
Of Columbse, the fine Carpophaga sylvatica, with its wonder¬ 
ful deep note, is plentiful in hill-jungles and forests when its 
favourite trees are in fruit. Palumbus torringtonim inhabits 
the hills, as it does in the central province. The wing-coverts 
in the immature bird are edged rusty. Osmotreron bicincta 
is numerous in the maritime districts, extending inland to the 
lower hills, where it is replaced from there up to the spurs 
of the Singha-Rajah and Morowa-Korle hills by Osmotreron 
JlavogulariSj Blyth ; the soft melodious whistle of this species 
is one of the most beautiful of all eastern bird-notes. The 
under tail-coverts in all specimens I have procured (it is very 
numerous also in the eastern province) have not sufficient 
green to warrant the feathers being described as such; those 
I have examined are white, the shorter feathers margined with 
faint yellow mottled or irregularly patched with greyish green 
