Footnote 4271: [(return)]
There is another variety of the same moth in Ceylon which closely resembles it in its markings, but in which I have never detected the uttering of this curious cry. It is smaller than the A. Satanas, and, like it, often enters dwellings at night, attracted by the lights; but I have not found its larvæ, although that of the other species is common on several widely different plants.
Footnote 4272: [(return)]
Antheræa mylitta, Drury.
Footnote 4281: [(return)]
The Portuguese had made the attempt previous to the arrival of the Dutch, and a strip of land on the banks of the Kalany river near Colombo, still bears the name of Orta Seda, the silk garden. The attempt of the Dutch to introduce the true silkworm, the Bombyx mori, took place under the governorship; of Ryklof Van Goens, who, on handing over the administration to his successor in A.D. 1663, thus apprises him of the initiation of the experiment:—"At Jaffna Palace a trial has been undertaken to feed silkworms, and to ascertain whether silk may be reared at that station. I have planted a quantity of mulberry trees, which grow well there, and they ought to be planted in other directions."—VALENTYN, chap. xiii. The growth of the mulberry trees is noticed the year after in a report to the governor-general of India, but the subject afterwards ceased to be attended to.
Footnote 4291: [(return)]
The species of moth with which it is identified has not yet been determined, but it most probably belongs to a section of Boisduval's genus Bombyx allied to Cnethocampa, Stephens.
Footnote 4301: [(return)]
Another caterpillar which feeds on the jasmine flowering Carissa, stings with such fury that I have known a gentleman to shed tears while the pain was at its height. It is short and broad, of a pale green, with fleshy spines on the upper surface, each of which seems to be charged with the venom that occasions this acute suffering. The moth which this caterpillar produces, Neæra lepida, Cramer; Limacodes graciosa, Westw., has dark brown wings, the primary traversed by a broad green band. It is common in the western side of Ceylon. The larvæ of the genus Adolia are also hairy, and sting with virulence.
Footnote 4302: [(return)]
Eumeta, Wlk.
Footnote 4303: [(return)]
The singular instincts of a species of Thecla, Dipsas Isocrates, Fab., in connection with the fruit of the pomegranate, were fully described by Mr. Westwood, in a paper read before the Entomological Society of London in 1835.
Footnote 4331: [(return)]
Amongst the specimens of this order which I brought from Ceylon, two proved to be new and undescribed, and have been named by Mr. A. WHITE Elidiptera Emersoniana and Poeciloptera Tennentina.
Footnote 4332: [(return)]
Such as Cantuo ocellatus, Leptoscelis Marginalis, Callidea Stockerius, &c. &c. Of the aquatic species, the gigantic Belostoma Indicum cannot escape notice, attaining a size of nearly three inches.
Footnote 4341: [(return)]
Culex laniger? Wied. In Kandy Mr. Thwaites finds C. fuscanns, C. circumcolans, &c., and one with a most formidable hooked proboscis, to which he has assigned the appropriate name C. Regius.