to count, it became one living screaming stream.  Some flew high in the air till right above their homes, and dived abruptly downward with many evolutions till on a level with the trees; others kept along the ground and dashed close by my face with the rapidity of thought, their brilliant plumage shining with an exquisite lustre in the sun-light.  I waited on the spot till the evening closed, when I could hear, though no longer distinguish, the birds fighting for their perches, and on firing a shot they rose with a noise like the ’rushing of a mighty wind,’ but soon settled again, and such a din commenced as I shall never forget; the shrill screams of the birds, the fluttering of their innumerable wings, and the rustling of the leaves of the palm trees, was almost deafening, and I was glad at last to escape to the Government Rest House."[1]

[Footnote 1:  Annals of Nat.  Hist. vol xiii. p.263.]

IV.  COLUMBIDAE. Pigeons.—­Of pigeons and doves there are at least a dozen species; some living entirely on trees[1] and never alighting on the ground; others, notwithstanding the abundance of food and warmth, are migratory[2], allured, as the Singhalese allege, by the ripening of the cinnamon berries, and hence one species is known in the southern provinces as the “Cinnamon Dove.”  Others feed on the fruits of the banyan:  and it is probably to their instrumentality that this marvellous tree chiefly owes its diffusion, its seeds being carried by them to remote localities.  A very beautiful pigeon, peculiar to the mountain range, discovered in the lofty trees at Neuera-ellia, has, in compliment to the Vicountess Torrington, been named Carpophaga Torringtoniae.

[Footnote 1:  Treron bicenta, Jerd.]

[Footnote 2:  Alsocomus puniceus, the “Season Pigeon” of Ceylon, so called from its periodical arrival and departure.]

Another, called by the natives neela-cobeya[1], although strikingly elegant both in shape and colour, is still more remarkable far the singularly soothing effect of its low and harmonious voice.  A gentleman who has spent many years in the jungle, in writing to me of this bird and of the effects of its melodious song, says, that “its soft and melancholy notes, as they came from some solitary place in the forest, were the most gentle sounds I ever listened to.  Some sentimental smokers assert that the influence of the propensity is to make them feel as if they could freely forgive all who had ever offended them, and I can say with truth such has been the effect on my own nerves of the plaintive murmurs of the neela-cobeya, that sometimes, when irritated, and not without reason, by the perverseness of some of my native followers, the feeling has almost instantly subsided into placidity on suddenly hearing the loving tones of these beautiful birds.”

[Footnote 1:  Chalcophaps Indicus, Linn.]