Birds in Southern Ceylon. 
27 
our list of the avifauna. Many of the Ardeidae are universally 
distributed throughout Ceylon, being found wherever there 
is the smallest piece of marsh or “ paddy 99 land, and must be 
in consequence considered an exception to the well-marked 
absence of their congeners from this part. Bordering the 
Gindurah river, in the neighbourhood of the villages of 
Wackwelle and Boddegamme, and extending thence to a dis¬ 
tance of some twenty-five miles from the sea, are large tracts 
of paddy- and open grass-land, which, of course, harbour a 
number of Snipes in the season, and about which large flocks 
of Golden Plovers are found in rainy weather. The district 
of Matura, the southernmost part of the island, contains much 
in common with this division of the province : the Whistling 
Teal (Dendrocygna javanica) is numerous there, and breeds 
in June and July in marshy deserted “ paddy 99 fields,- and I 
am informed that the large Wild Duck [Anaspoecilorhyncha) 
is found sometimes on the river Niwalle, which flows into the 
sea near the town of Matura. There are several large brackish 
lagoons connected with the sea and lying some little distance 
inland along the coast-line from Bentotte, thirty miles north 
of Galle, to Matura, about the same distance to the south¬ 
east ; but these are singularly devoid of bird-life. The shores, 
instead of being flat, are lined with mangrove-thickets; and 
the waters are not tidal; so that there is almost a total absence 
of Totani and Tringee; a few Herons, among which Nycti- 
corax griseus predominates in some places, are the sole deni¬ 
zens of the borders of these lakes. The waters being brackish 
harbour scarcely any wild fowl, a stray Cormorant or two, 
Graculus javanicus, being about the only form to be seen in 
a day^s trip. The Charadriidse of this part of the island are 
Ch. fulvus, JEgialites mongolicus , and Lobivanellus goensis. 
The first of these is the most abundant, arriving in Sep¬ 
tember a little before the Snipe, and departing later, as far 
into the breeding-season as the first week in May. In the 
north of Ceylon, I should say, many birds while passing to high 
latitudes ought to be procurable in full summer dress. In 
this district, as early as the 29th of April, I have procured 
them with the white forehead and neck-bordering, and the 
