DEVIL BIRD OF CEYLON.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 13444, 11 April 1907, Page 2

DEVIL BIRD OF CEYLON.

Most people who have visited the island of Ceylon and penetrated into its jungle fastnesses have heard the cry of the devil bird. This awe-inspiring sound resembles nothing so much as the scream of a human being undergoing the most terrible torture. Naturalists have identified it with the brown wood owl found in Hindustan. But the devil bird, or ulama, as the Cingalese call it, is an elusive creature, and no one has had the good fortune to kill or catch a specimen. The Cingalese — naturally a superstitious race — regard the cry of this bird with the utmost horror. They believe that its scream, heard at night, presages the most dire misfortune, and they are in the habit of offering sacrifices to avert the approaching disaster. Mr Fitford, of the Ceylon Civil Service, studied the mysterious bird with great interest. "Its ordinary note,'* he writes, "is- a magnificent, clear shout, like that of a human being, which can be heard at a great distance,

;id has a fine effect in the silence of the closing night. But the sounds which have earned for it its bad natme, and which I have heard but once to perfection, are indescribable, the most appalling that can be imagined, and scarcely to be heard without shuddering. J can only compare it to a boy in torture,, whose screams are being stopped by being strangled."