Long and heavy it swells and
dies away. It is the devil-bird; and whoever sees that bird must
surely die soon after, according to Cingalese superstition.
A more cheering sound charms the ear as the gray tint of morning
makes the stars grow pale; clear, rich, notes, now prolonged and
full, now plaintive and low, set the example to other singing
birds, as the bulbul, first to awake, proclaims the morning.
Wild, jungle-like songs the birds indulge in; not like our steady
thrushes of Old England, but charming in their quaintness. The
jungle partridge now wakes up, and with his loud cry subdues all
other sounds, until the numerous peacocks, perched on the high
trees around the lake, commence their discordant yells, which
master everything.
The name for the devil-bird is "gualama," and so impressed are
the natives with the belief that a sight of it is equivalent to a
call to the nether world that they frequently die from sheer
fright and nervousness. A case of this happened to a servant of
a friend of mine. He chanced to see the creature sitting on a
bough, and he was from that moment so satisfied of his inevitable
fate that he refused all food, and fretted and died, as, of
course, any one else must do, if starved, whether he saw the
devil-bird or not.
Although I have heard the curious, mournful cry of this creature
nearly every night, I have never seen one; this is easily
accounted for, as, being a night-bird, it remains concealed in
the jungle during the day. In so densely wooded a country as
Ceylon it is not to be wondered at that owls, and all other birds
of similar habit are so rarely met with. Even woodcocks are
rarely noticed; so seldom, indeed, that I have never seen more
than two during my residence in the island.
>From the same cause many interesting animals pass unobserved,
although they are very numerous. The porcupine, although as
common as the hedge-hog in England, is very seldom seen.
Likewise the manis, or great scaled ant-eater, who retires to his
hole before break of day, is never met with by daylight.
Indeed, I have had some trouble in persuading many persons in
Ceylon that such an animal exists in the country.
In the same manner the larger kinds of serpents conceal
themselves by day and wander forth at night, like all other
reptiles except the smaller species of lizard, of which we have
in Ceylon an immense variety, from the crocodile himself down to
the little house-lizard.
Of this tribe the "cabra goya" and the "iguana" grow to a large
size; the former I have killed as long as eight or nine feet, but
the latter seldom exceeds four.
