NOTES. 
53 
were scattered about the bed, covered a varied cryptozoic fauna, 
including, besides millipedes, insects, and numerous very young 
tank shells (Ampullaridce) , a great many frogs (Rana limnocharis) 
and some Indian field mice (Mus buduga). The mice were nesting 
in shallow burrows, into which the females brought grass to form a 
couch for the young. Mice and frogs were associated together 
under the same logs. The former made no attempt to escape from 
the vicinity of their burrows when exposed to the light, but simply 
hid their heads ; it was their breeding season. There were also some 
skinks, including the red-tailed lizard ( Lygosoma punctatum) and 
the black-tailed lizard, the oviparous keel-back skink, Mabuia 
carinata, with its eggs. 
It was interesting to see an earwig tending a clutch of small round 
eggs which she had laid in a little saucer-shaped depression under a 
log. The flash of daylight alarmed it, and it commenced sweeping 
round the surface of the eggs with a lateral flexure of the abdomen, 
and actually caught a small intruding ant between its forceps. 
Then unwillingly she began to pick up the eggs one by one with her 
jaws, after the manner of ants, and removed them to a safer place. 
February 8, 1909. A. WILLEY. 
2. Random Notes. —On December 26 last, near the Vessa- 
giri caves at Anuradhapura, I saw about thirty kites, eight crows, 
four blue rollers, and a number of swallows all mixed up together 
and engaged in hawking white ants, while the perfect insects were on 
flight. The kites used their talons for the capture, and the other 
birds their bills. 
While I observed the crowd of birds hawking the termites, the 
light was good (8 a.m.), and, although I sat close by for perhaps half 
an hour, the birds paid me little or no attention. The swallows 
swooped in and out among the trees ; and, so far as they go, my 
assumption that they caught the insects is based only on deduction. 
The crows and rollers caught the insects in their bills, and not only 
could the snapping be distinctly heard, but the falling wings of the 
captured termites were each time apparent as they fluttered down. 
The kites used their talons ; after each swoop they put down their 
beaks and took the insect from the grip of their feet, at the same 
time dropping the discarded wings. 
At the drinking pokuna in Anuradhapura I recently saw a red 
paradise flycatcher plunge from its station on a tree and capture 
something in the water. The bird went almost straight down and 
in with a splash, just like a kingfisher. 
In the crevices of the stones which line the channel just below the 
Tissawewa sluice at Anuradhapura snakes are very often to be seen. 
The othet day I saw one (about 4 feet long) which had, head foremost 
