[An Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies by Robert Knox]@TWC D-Link bookAn Historical Relation Of The Island Ceylon In The East Indies PART I 101/117
A great many wild Peacocks: small green Parrots, but not very good to talk.
But here is another [Such as will be taught to speak.] Bird in their Language called Mal-cowda, which with teaching will speak excellently well.
It is black with yellow gills about the bigness of a Black-Bird: And another sort there is of the same bigness, called Cau-cowda, yellow like gold, very beautiful to the eye, which also might be taught to speak. [Such as are beautiful for colour.] Here are other sorts of small Birds, not much bigger than a Sparrow, very lovely to look on, but I think good for nothing else: some being in colour white like Snow, and their tayl about one foot in length, and their heads black like jet, with a tuft like a plume of Feathers standing upright thereon.
There are others of the same sort onely differing in colour, being reddish like a ripe Orange, and on the head a Plume of black Feathers standing up.
I suppose, one may be the Cock, and the other the Hen. [A strange Bird.] Here is a sort of Bird they call Carlo, which never lighteth on the ground, but always sets on very high Trees.
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