A case of this happened to a servant of a friend of mine.
He chanced to see the creature sitting on a bough, and he was from that moment so satisfied of his inevitable fate that he refused all food, and fretted and died, as, of course, any one else must do, if starved, whether he saw the devil-bird or not.
Although I have heard the curious, mournful cry of this creature nearly every night, I have never seen one; this is easily accounted for, as, being a night-bird, it remains concealed in the jungle during the day.
In so densely wooded a country as Ceylon it is not to be wondered at that owls, and all other birds of similar habit are so rarely met with.
Even woodcocks are rarely noticed; so seldom, indeed, that I have never seen more than two during my residence in the island.
From the same cause many interesting animals pass unobserved, although they are very numerous.

The porcupine, although as common as the hedge-hog in England, is very seldom seen.

Likewise the manis, or great scaled ant-eater, who retires to his hole before break of day, is never met with by daylight.

Indeed, I have had some trouble in persuading many persons in Ceylon that such an animal exists in the country.
In the same manner the larger kinds of serpents conceal themselves by day and wander forth at night, like all other reptiles except the smaller species of lizard, of which we have in Ceylon an immense variety, from the crocodile himself down to the little house-lizard.
Of this tribe the "cabra goya" and the "iguana" grow to a large size; the former I have killed as long as eight or nine feet, but the latter seldom exceeds four.

I have often intended to eat one, as the natives consider them a great delicacy, but I have never been quite hungry enough to make the trial whenever one was at hand.