arajapoora, where it is trained for hawking, it is usual, in lieu
of a hood, to darken its eyes by means of a silken thread passed through
holes in the eyelids. The ignoble birds of prey, the Kites[4], keep
close by the shore, and hover round the returning boats of the fishermen
to feast on the fry rejected from their nets.

[Footnote 1: Falco peregrinus, _Linn._]

[Footnote 2: Tinnunculus alaudarius, _Briss._]

[Footnote 3: Astur trivirgatus, _Temm._]

[Footnote 4: Milvus govinda, _Sykes._ Dr. Hamilton Buchanan remarks that
when gorged this bird delights to sit on the entablature of buildings,
exposing its back to the hottest rays of the sun, placing its breast
against the wall, and stretching out its wings _exactly as the Egyptian
Hawk is represented on the monuments_.]

_Owls_.--Of the nocturnal accipitres the most remarkable is the brown
owl, which, from its hideous yell, has acquired the name of the
"Devil-Bird."[1] The Singhalese regard it literally with horror, and its
scream by night in the vicinity of a village is bewailed as the
harbinger of impending calamity.[2] There is a popular legend in
connection with it, to the effect that a morose and savage husband, who
suspected the fidelity of his wife, availed himself of her absence to
kill her child, of whose paternity he was doubtful, and on her return
placed before her a curry prepared from its flesh. Of this the unhappy
woman partook, till discovering the crime by finding the finger of her
infant, she fled in frenzy to the forest, and there destroyed herself.
On her death she was metamorphosed, according to the Buddhist belief,
into an _ulama_, or Devil-bird, which still at nightfall horrifies the
villagers by repeating the frantic screams of the bereaved mother in her
agony.

[Footnote 1: Syrnium Indranee, _Sykes._ Mr. Blyth writes to me from
Calcutta that there are some doubts about this bird. There would appear
to be three or four distinguishable races, the Ceylon bird approximating
most nearly to that of the Malayan Peninsula.]

[Illustration: THE "DEVIL BIRD."]

[Footnote 2: The horror of this nocturnal scream was equally prevalent
in the West as in the East. Ovid introduces it in his _Fasti_, L. vi. l.
139; and Tibullus in his Elegies, L. i. El. 5. Statius says--

Nocturnaeque gemunt striges, et feralla bubo
_Damna canens_. Theb. iii. l. 511.

But Pliny, l. xi. c. 93, doubts as to what bird produced the sound;--and
the details of Ov