[Footnote 1:  The engraving of the Tchitrea given on page 244 is copied by permission from one of the splendid drawings in.  MR. GOULD’S Birds of India.]

The Bulbul.—­The Condatchee Bulbul[1], which, from the crest on its head, is called by the Singhalese the “Konda Cooroola,” or Tuft bird, is regarded by the natives as the most “game” of all birds; and training it to fight was one of the duties entrusted by the Kings of Kandy to the Cooroowa, or Head-man, who had charge of the King’s animals and Birds.  For this purpose the Bulbul is taken from the nest as soon as the sex is distinguishable by the tufted crown; and secured by a string, is taught to fly from hand to hand of its keeper.  When pitted against an antagonist, such is the obstinate courage of this little creature that it will sink from exhaustion rather than release its hold.  This propensity, and the ordinary character of its notes, render it impossible that the Bulbul of India could be identical with the Bulbul of Iran, the “Bird of a Thousand Songs,"[2] of which, poets say that its delicate passion for the rose gives a plaintive character to its note.

[Footnote 1:  Pycnonotus haemorrhous, Gmel.]

[Footnote 2:  “Hazardasitaum” the Persian name for the bulbul.  “The Persians,” according to Zakary ben Mohamed al Caswini, “say the bulbul has a passion for the rose, and laments and cries when he sees it pulled.”—­OUSELEY’S Oriental Collections, vol. i. p. 16.  According to Pallas it is the true nightingale of Europe, Sylvia luscinia, which the Armenians call boulboul, and the Crim-Tartars byl-byl-i.]

Tailor-Bird.—­The Weaver-Bird.—­The tailor-bird[1] having completed her nest, sewing together leaves by passing through them a cotton thread twisted by herself, leaps from branch to branch to testify her happiness by a clear and merry note; and the Indian weaver[2], a still more ingenious artist, hangs its pendulous dwelling from a projecting bough; twisting it with grass into a form somewhat resembling a bottle with a prolonged neck, the entrance being inverted, so as to baffle the approaches of its enemies, the tree snakes and other reptiles.  The natives assert that the male bird carries fire flies to the nest, and fastens them to its sides by a particle of soft mud;—­Mr. Layard assures me that although he has never succeeded in finding the fire fly, the nest of the male bird (for the female occupies another during incubation) invariably contains a patch of mud on each side of the perch.  Grass is apparently the most convenient material for the purposes of the Weaver-bird when constructing its nest, but other substances are often substituted, and some nests which I brought from Ceylon proved to be formed with delicate strips from the fronds of the dwarf date-palm, Phoenix paludosa, which happened to grow near the breeding place.

[Footnote 1:  Orthotomus longicauda, Gmel.]