________________
NOVEMBER, 1903.)
GLIMPSES OF SINGHALESE SOCIAL LIFE,
435
(ittend) shoots its quills to a distance to keep off its antagonists. The hare (havd) gives birth to its young on full-moon days, one of whom has a moon on its forehead, and dies the first day it sees that planet or invariably becomes a prey to the rat-snake.
When a tooth falls out, its owner throws it on to the roof saying, "lêno 16n8 mê data aran honda ke kulu datak diyo," "squirrel, dear squirrel, take this tooth and give me a dainty tooth." Goblins are afraid of cattle (harak) with crumpled horns; a stick of the Lea staphlya (burulla) is not used to drive them as it makes them lean; and bezoar stones (góróchana) found in them are given for amall-pox, Wild buffaloes (mi harak) are subject to charms. The deer's (truwod) musk prolongs a dying man's life.
An elephant (aliyd) shakes a palm-leaf before eating it, as blood-suckers may be lurking there to go up its trunk; a dead animal is never found, for when death approaches, elephants go to a certain secluded spot and lay themselves down to breathe their last. The pengolin (kabellé vd) is turned out of his home by the porcupine; and person forcibly ejected from his house by another is compared to it. The mythical unicorn (kangaréná) has a horn on its forehead with which it pierces the rocks that intercept its path.
If a crow (kdkkd) caws near one's house in the morning, it forebodes sickness or death, at noon pleasure or the arrival of a friend, and in the evening much profit; if it drops its dung on the head, shoulders, or on the back of a person, it signifies great bappiness, but on the knees or instep a speedy death; crows are divided into two castes which do not mate : the hooded or goigama crows, and the jungle or kará crows; they faint three times at night through banger, and their insatiate appetite can only be appeased by making them swallow rags dipped in ghee; they hatch their eggs in time to take their young to the Dewdla festivals in Augast, and as no one eats their flesh they sorrowfully cry, "kátkd" or "kakka" (I eat everybody); a crow never dies a natural death and once in a hundred years a feather drops.
Dark-plamaged birds like the owl (based), the magpie robin (polkichcha), and the black-bird (kavııdı-panikkiy d) are considered ominous, and they are chased away from the vicinity of houses; the cry of the night-heron (kanakokd) as it flies over a house presages illness, and that of the devilbird (ulámd) immediate death, to an inmate. If pigeons (pareyyo) leave a house it is # sign of impending misfortune, and if a spotted dove (alukobeyyd) flies through one, it is temporarily abandoned. The presence of house sparrows (gé kurulld) in a house indicate that male-children will be born; the cries of the cuckoo (koha) at night portend dry weather; the arrival of the pitta (a vichohiyd) presages rain; and the eggs of the plover (kerall), if eaten, produce watchfulness.
Parrots (girav) are proverbially ungrateful, the son-bird (sittikkd) boasts after a copious draught of toddy that he can overturn Maha Meru with its tiny beak; the great desire and difficulty of the horn-bill (kendetta) to drink water is retribution for its refusal to give a supply of it to a thirsty person in its last existence, the common babbler (battichcha or demalichchd) hops, as he once was * fettered prisoner; the male red-tailed fly-catcher (ginihord) was a fire-thief, and its white-tailed mate (redi-horl) a clothes-robber. Thunder bursts open the eggs of the peacocks (moner), and hence their love for rain; they dance in the morning to pay obeisance to the sun-god, and as girls will not get suitors are not domesticated. A white cock brings luck and prevents a garden from being destroyed by black beetles; when a ben bas hatched, the shells are not thrown away but threaded together and kept in the loft over the fire-place till the chicks can take care of themselves ; the Ceylon jungle fowls (welikukulá) become blind by eating the seeds of a species of strobilanthes, when they may be knocked down with a stick.
A crocodile (kimbula) makes lumps of clay to while away the time, and as it carries away its prey it plays at ball with it; when its mouth is open the eyes get shut. The flesh of the Varanns dracaena talagoya) is nutritious and never disagrees. The Hydrosaurus salvator (kabaragoyd) is made use of to make a deadly and leprosy-begetting poison, which is injected into the veins of the betel-leaf and given to an enemy to chew: three of the reptiles are tied to a hearth-stone (liggula),
