not being above
eighteen inches long, is easy swallowing.

A great number of the crane species are destroyers of snakes, which in
a country so infested with vermin as Ceylon renders them especially
valuable. Peacocks likewise wage perpetual war with all kinds of
reptiles, and Nature has wisely arranged that where these nuisances
most abound there is a corresponding provision for their destruction.

Snipes, of course, abound in their season around the margin of the
lakes; but the most delicious birds for the table are the teal and
ducks, of which there are four varieties. The largest duck is nearly
the size of a wild goose, and has a red, fatty protuberance about the
beak very similar to a muscovy. The teal are the fattest and most
delicious birds that I have ever tasted. Cooked in Soyer's magic stove,
with a little butter, cayenne pepper, a squeeze of lime juice, a pinch
of salt, and a spoonful of Lea and Perrins' Worcester sauce (which, by
the by, is the best in the world for a hot climate), and there is no
bird like a Ceylon teal. They are very numerous, and I have seen them
in flocks of some thousands on the salt-water lakes on the eastern
coast, where they are seldom or ever disturbed. Nevertheless, they are
tolerably wary, which, of course, increases the sport of shooting them.
I have often thought what a paradise these lakes would have made for
the veteran Colonel Hawker with his punt gun. He might have paddled
about and blazed away to his heart's content.

There is one kind of duck that would undoubtedly have astonished him,
and which would have slightly bothered the punt gun for an elevation:
this is the tree duck, which flies about and perches in the branches of
the lofty trees like any nightingale. This has an absurd effect, as a
duck looks entirely out of place in such a situation. I have seen a
whole cluster of them sitting on one branch, and when I first observed
them I killed three at one shot to make it a matter of certainty.

It is a handsome light brown bird, about the size of an English
widgeon, but there is no peculiar formation in the feet to enable them
to cling to a bough; they are bona fide ducks with the common flat web
foot.

A very beautiful species of bald-pated coot, called by the natives
keetoolle, is also an inhabitant of the lakes. This bird is of a
bright blue color with a brilliant pink horny head. He is a slow
flyer, being as bulky as a common fowl and short in his propor