Order HYMENOPTERA.
"In this order the Formicidoe and the Poneridoe are very numerous, as they are in other damp and woody tropical countries. Seventy species of ants have been observed, but as yet few of them have been named. The various other families of aculeate Hymenoptera are doubtless more abundant than the species recorded indicate, and it may be safely reckoned that the parasitic Hymenoptera in Ceylon far exceed one thousand species in number, though they are yet only known by means of about two dozen kinds collected at Kandy by Mr. Thwaites.
Order LEPIDOPTERA.
"The fauna of Ceylon is much better known in this order than in any other of the insect tribes, but as yet the Lepidoptera alone in their class afford materials for a comparison of the productions of Ceylon with those of Hindostan and of Australasia; 932 species have been collected by Dr. Templeton and by Mr. Layard in the central, western, and northern parts of the island. All the families, from the Papilionidoe to the Tineidoe, abound, and numerous species and several genera appear, as yet, to be peculiar to the island. As Ceylon is situate at the entrance to the eastern regions, the list in this volume will suitably precede the descriptive catalogues of the heterocerous Lepidoptera of Hindostan, Java, Borneo, and of other parts of Australasia, which are being prepared for publication. In some of the heterocerous families several species are common to Ceylon and to Australasia, and in various cases the faunas of Ceylon and of Australasia seem to be more similar than those of Ceylon and of Hindostan. The long intercourse between those two regions may have been the means of conveying some species from one to the other. Among the Pyralites, Hymenia recurvalis inhabits also the West Indies, South America, West Africa, Hindostan, China, Australasia, Australia, and New Zealand; and its food-plant is probably some vegetable which is cultivated in all those regions; so also Desmia afflictalis is found in Sierra Leone, Ceylon, and China.
Order DIPTERA.
"About fifty species were observed by Dr. Templeton, but most of those here recorded were collected by Mr. Thwaites at Kandy, and have a great likeness to North European species.
"The mosquitoes are very annoying on account of their numbers, as might be expected from the moisture and heat of the climate. Culex laniger is the coast species, and the other kinds here mentioned are from Kandy. Humboldt observed that in some parts of South America each stream had its peculiar mosquitoes, and it yet remains to be seen whether the gnats in Ceylon are also thus restricted in their habitation. The genera Sciara, Cecidomyia, and Simulium, which abound so exceedingly in temperate countries, have each one representative species in the collection made by Mr. Thwaites. Thus an almost new field remains for the Entomologist in the study of the yet unknown Singhalese Diptera, which must be very numerous.
Order HEMIPTERA.