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.]
_The Wood-carrying Moth_.--There is another family of insects, the
singular habits of which will not fail to attract the traveller in the
cultivated tracts of Ceylon--these are moths of the genus
_Oiketicus_[1], of which the females are devoid of wings, and some
possess no articulated feet. Their larvæ construct for themselves cases,
which they suspend to a branch frequently of the pomegranate[2],
surrounding them with the stems of leaves, and thorns or pieces of twigs
bound together by threads, till the whole presents the appearance of a
bundle of rods about an inch and a half long; and, from the resemblance
of this to a Roman fasces, one African species has obtained the name of
"Lictor." The German entomologists denominated the group _Sackträger_,
the Singhalese call them _Dara-kattea_ or "billets of firewood," and
regard the inmates as human beings, who, as a punishment for stealing
wood in some former state of existence, have been condemned to undergo a
metempsychosis under the form of these insects.
[Footnote 1: _Eumeta_, Wlk.]
[Footnote 2: 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.]
[Illustration: THE WOOD-CARRYING MOTH.]
The male, at the close of the pupal rest, escapes from one end of this
singular covering, but the female makes it her dwelling for life; moving
about with it at pleasure, and entrenching herself within it, when
alarmed, by drawing together the purse-like aperture at the open end. Of
these remarkable creatures there are five ascertained species in Ceylon:
_Psyche Doubledaii_, Westw.; _Metisa plana_; Walker; _Eumeta Cramerii_,
Westw.; _E. Templetonii_, Westw.; and _Cryptothelea consorta_, Temp.
All the other tribes of minute _Lepitoptera_ have abundant
representatives in Ceylon; some of them most attractive from the great
beauty of their markings and colouring. The curious little split-winged
moth (_Pterophorus_) is frequently seen in the cinnamon gardens and in
the vicinity of the fort, hid from the noon-day heat among the cool
grass shaded by the coco-nut topes. Three species have been captured,
all characterised by the same singular feature of having the wings
fan-like, separated nearly their entire length into detached sections,
resembling feathers in the pinions of a bird expanded for flight.
HOMOPTERA. _Cicada._--Of the _Homoptera_, the one which will most
frequently arrest attention is the cicada, which, resting high up on the
bark of a tree, makes the forest re-echo with a long-sustained noise so
curiously resembling that of a cutler's wheel that the creature
producing it has acquired the highly-appropriate name of the
"knife-grinder."
[Illustration: CICADA--"THE KNIFE GRINDER."]
In the jungle which adjoined the grounds attached to my official
residence at Kandy, the shrubs were frequented by an insect covered
profusely with a snow-white powder, arranged in delicate filaments that
curl like a head of dressed celery. These it moves without dispersing
the powder: but when dead they fall rapidly to dust. I regret that I did
not preserve specimens, but I have reason to think that they are the
larvæ of the _Flata limbata_, or of some other closely allied
species[1], though I have not seen in Ceylon any of the wax produced by
the _flata_.
[Footnote 1: 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_.]
HEMIPTERA. _Bugs_.--On the shrubs in his compound the newly-arrived
traveller will be attracted by an insect of a pale green hue and
delicately-thin configuration, which, resting from its recent flight,
composes its scanty wings, and moves languidly along the leaf. But
experience will teach him to limit his examination to a respectful view
of its attitudes; it is one of a numerous family of bugs, (some of them
most attractive[1] in their colouring,) which are inoffensive if
unmolested, but if touched or irritated, exhale an odour that, once
endured, is never afterwards forgotten.
[Footnote 1: 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.]
APHANIPTERA. _Fleas_.--Fleas are equally numerous, and may be seen in
myriads in the dust of the streets or skipping in the sunbeams which
fall on the clay floors of the cottages. The dogs, to escape them,
select for their sleeping places spots where a wood fire has been
previously kindled; and here prone on the white ashes, their stomachs
close to the earth, and their hind legs extended behind, they repose in
comparative coolness, and bid defiance to their persecutors.
[Illustration: POECILOPTERA TENNENTINA.]
[Illustration: ELIDIPTERA EMERSONIANA.]
DIPTERA. _Mosquitoes_.--But of all the insect pests that beset an
unseasoned European the most provoking by far is the truculent
mosquito.[1] Next to the torture which it inflicts, its most annoying
peculiarities are the booming hum of its approach, its cunning, its
audacity, and the perseverance with which it renews its attacks however
frequently repulsed. These characteristics are so remarkable as fully to
justify the conjecture that the mosquito, and not the ordinary fly,
constituted the plague inflicted upon Pharaoh and the Egyptians.[2]
[Footnote 1: _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_.]
[Footnote 2: The precise species of insect by means of which the
Almighty signalised the plague of flies, remains uncertain, as the
Hebrew term _arob_ or _oror_ which has been rendered in one place.
"Divers sorts of flies," Ps. cv. 31; and in another, "swarms of flies,"
Exod. viii. 21, &c., means merely "an assemblage." a "mixture" or a
"swarm," and the expletive. "_of flies_" is an interpolation of the
translators. This, however, serves to show that the fly implied was one
easily recognisable by its habit of _swarming_; and the further fact
that it _bites_, or rather stings, is elicited from the expression of
the Psalmist, Ps. lxxviii. 45, that the insects by which the Egyptians
were tormented "devoured them," so that here are two peculiarities
inapplicable to the domestic fly, but strongly characteristic of gnats
and mosquitoes.
Bruce thought that the fly of the fourth plague was the "zimb" of
Abyssinia which he so graphically describes: and WESTWOOD, in an
ingenious passage in his _Entomologist's Text-book._ p. 17, combats the
strange idea of one of the bishops, that it was a cockroach! and argues
in favour of the mosquito. This view he sustains by a reference to the
habits of the creature, the swarms in which it invades a locality, and
the audacity with which it enters the houses; and he accounts for the
exemption of "the land of Goshen in which the Isrælites dwelt," by the
fact of its being sandy pasture above the level of the river; whilst the
mosquitoes were produced freely in the rest of Egypt, the soil of which
was submerged by the rising of the Nile.
In all the passages in the Old Testament in which flies are alluded to,
otherwise than in connection with the Egyptian infliction, the word used
in the Hebrew is _zevor_, which the Septuagint renders by the ordinary
generic term for flies in general, [Greek: muia], "_musca_" (Eccles. x.
1, Isaiah vii. 10); but in every instance in which mention is made of
the miracle of Moses, the Septuagint says that the fly produced was the
[Greek: kunomyia], the "dog-fly." What insect was meant by this name it
is not now easy to determine, but ÆLIAN intimates that the dogfly both
inflicts a wound and emits a booming sound, in both of which particulars
it accords with the mosquito (lib. iv, 51); and PHILO-JUDÆUS, in his
_Vita Mosis_, lib. i. ch. xxiii., descanting on the plague of flies, and
using the term of the Septuagint, [Greek: kunomyia], describes it as
combining the characteristic of "the most impudent of all animals, the
fly and the dog, exhibiting the courage and the cunning of both, and
fastening on its victim with the noise and rapidity of an
arrow"--[Greek: meta roizou kathaper belos]. This seems to identify the
dog-fly of the Septuagint with the description of the Psalmist, Ps.
lxxviii. 45, and to vindicate the conjecture that the tormenting
mosquito, and not the house-fly, was commissioned by the Lord to humble
the obstinacy of the Egyptian tyrant.]
Even in the midst of endurance from their onslaughts one cannot but be
amused by the ingenuity of their movements; as if aware of the risk
incident to an open assault, a favourite mode of attack is, when
concealed by a table, to assail the ankles through the meshes of the
stocking, or the knees which are ineffectually protected by a fold of
Russian duck. When you are reading, a mosquito will rarely settle on
that portion of your hand which is within range of your eyes, but
cunningly stealing by the underside of the book fastens on the wrist or
little finger, and noiselessly inserts his proboscis there. I have
tested the classical expedient recorded by Herodotus, who states that
the fishermen inhabiting the fens of Egypt, cover their beds with their
nets, knowing that the mosquitoes, although they bite through linen
robes, will not venture through a net.[1] But, notwithstanding the
opinion of Spence[2], that nets with meshes an inch square will
effectually exclude them, I have been satisfied by painful experience
that (if the theory be not altogether fallacious) at least the modern
mosquitoes of Ceylon are uninfluenced by the same considerations which
restrained those of the Nile under the successors of Cambyses.
[Footnote 1: HERODOTUS, _Euterpe._ xcv.]
[Footnote 2: KIRBY and SPENCE'S _Entomology_, letter iv.]
_The Coffee-Bug_.--Allusion has been made in a previous passage to the
coccus known in Ceylon as the "Coffee-Bug" (_Lecanium Caffeæ_, Wlk.),
which of late years has made such destructive ravages in the plantations
in the Mountain Zone.[1] The first thing that attracts attention on
looking at a coffee tree infested by it, is the number of brownish
wart-like bodies that stud the young shoots and occasionally the margins
on the underside of the leaves.[2] Each of these warts or scales is a
transformed female, containing a large number of eggs which are hatched
within it.
[Footnote 1: The following notice of the "coffee-bug," and of the
singularly destructive effects produced by it on the plants, has been
prepared chiefly from a memoir presented to the Ceylon Government by the
late Dr. Gardner, in which he traces the history of the insect from its
first appearance in the coffee districts, until it had established
itself more or less permanently in all the estates in full cultivation
throughout the island.]
[Footnote 2: See the annexed drawing, Fig. 1.]
When the young ones come out from their nest, they run about over the
plant like diminutive wood-lice, and at this period there is no apparent
distinction between male and female. Shortly after being hatched the
males seek the underside of the leaves, while the females prefer the
young shoots as a place of abode. If the under surface of a leaf be
examined, it will be found to be studded, particularly on its basil
half, with minute yellowish-white specks of an oblong form.[1] These are
the larvæ of the males undergoing transformation into pupæ, beneath
their own skins; some of these specks are always in a more advanced
state than the others, the full-grown ones being whitish and scarcely a
line long. Some of this size are translucent, the insect having escaped;
the darker ones still retain it within, of an oblong form, with the
rudiment of a wing on each side attached to the lower part of the thorax
and closely applied to the sides; the legs are six in number, the four
hind ones being directed backwards, the anterior forwards (a peculiarity
not common in other insects); the two antennæ are also inclined
backwards, and from the tail protrude three short bristles, the middle
one thinner and longer than the rest.
[Footnote 1: Figs. 2, and 3 and 5 in the engraving, where these and all
the other figures are considerably enlarged.]
When the transformation is complete, the mature insect makes its way
from beneath the pellucid case[1], all its organs having then attained
their full size: the head is sub-globular, with two rather prominent
black eyes, and two antennæ, each with eleven joints, hairy throughout,
and a tuft of rather longer hairs at the apices; the legs are also
covered with hairs, the wings are horizontal, of an obovate oblong
shape, membranous, and extending a little farther than the bristles of
the tail. They have only two nerves, neither of which reaches so far as
the tips; one of them runs close to the costal margin, and is much
thicker than the other, which branches off from its base and skirts
along the inner margin; behind the wings is attached a pair of minute
halteres of peculiar form. The possession of wings would appear to be
the cause why the full-grown male is more rarely seen on the coffee
bushes than the female.
[Footnote 1: Fig. 4. Mr. WESTWOOD, who observed the operation in one
species, states that they escape backwards, the wings being extended
flatly over the head.]
The female, like the male, attaches herself to the surface of the plant,
the place selected being usually the young shoots; but she is also to be
met with on the margins of the undersides of the leaves (on the upper
surface neither the male nor female ever attach themselves); but, unlike
the male, which derives no nourishment from the juices of the tree (the
mouth being obsolete in the perfect state), she punctures the cuticle
with a proboscis (a very short three-jointed _promuscis_), springing as
it were from the breast, but capable of being greatly porrected, and
inserted in the cuticle of the plant, and through this she abstracts her
nutriment. In the early pupa state the female is easily distinguishable
from the male, by being more elliptical and much more convex. As she
increases in size her skin distends and she becomes smooth and dry; the
rings of the body become effaced; and losing entirely the form of an
insect, she presents, for some time, a yellowish pustular shape, but
ultimately assumes a roundish conical form, of a dark brown colour.[1]
[Footnote 1: Figs. 6 and 7. There are many other species of the Coccus
tribe in Ceylon, some (Pseudococcus?) never appearing as a scale, the
female wrapping herself up in a white cottony exudation; many species
nearly allied to the true Coccus infest common plants about gardens,
such as the Nerium Oleander, Plumeria Acuminata, and others with milky
juices; another subgenus (Ceroplastes?), the female of which produces a
protecting waxy material, infests the Gendurassa Vulgaris, the Furrcæa
Gigantea, the Jak Tree, Mango, and other common trees.]
Until she has nearly reached her full size, she still possesses the
power of locomotion, and her six legs are easily distinguishable in the
under surface of her corpulent body; but at no period of her existence
has she wings. It is about the time of her obtaining full size that
impregnation takes place[1]; after which the scale becomes somewhat more
conical, assumes a darker colour, and at length is permanently fixed to
the surface of the plant, by means of a cottony substance interposed
between it and the vegetable cuticle to which it adheres. The scale,
when full grown, exactly resembles in miniature the hat of a Cornish
miner[2], there being a narrow rim at the base, which gives increased
surface of attachment. It is about 1/8 inch in diameter, by about 1/12
deep, and it appears perfectly smooth to the naked eye; but it is in
reality studded over with a multitude of very minute warts, giving it a
dotted appearance. Except the margin, which is ciliated, it is entirely
destitute of hairs. The number of eggs contained in one of the scales is
enormous, amounting in a single one to 691. The eggs are of an oblong
shape, of a pale flesh colour, and perfectly smooth.[3] In some of the
scales, the eggs when laid on the field of the microscope resemble those
masses of life sometimes seen in decayed cheese.[4] A few small
yellowish maggots are sometimes found with them, and these are the
larvæ[5] of insects, the eggs of which have been deposited in the female
while the scale was soft. They escape when mature by cutting a small
round hole in the dorsum of the scale.
[Footnote 1: REAUMUR has described the singular manner in which this
occurs. _Mem._ tom. iv.]
[Footnote 2: Fig. 8.]
[Footnote 3: Fig. 9.]
[Footnote 4: Figs. 10, 11.]
[Footnote 5: Of the parasitic Chalcididiæ, many genera of which are well
known to deposit their eggs in the soft Coccus, viz.: Encystus,
Coccophagus, Pteromalus, Mesosela, Agonioneurus; besides Aphidius, a
minutely sized genus of Ichneumonidæ. Most, if not all, of these genera
are Singhalese.]
[Illustration: THE COFFEE BUG. Lecanium Coffeæ.]
It is not till after this pest has been on an estate for two or three
years that it shows itself to an alarming extent. During the first year
a few only of the ripe scales are seen scattered over the bushes,
generally on the younger shoots; but that year's crop does not suffer
much, and the appearance of the tree is little altered.
The second year, however, brings a change for the worse; if the young
shoots and the underside of the leaves he now examined, the scales will
be found to have become much more numerous, and with them appear a
multitude of white specks, which are the young scales in a more or less
forward state. The clusters of berries now assume a black sooty look,
and a great number of them fall off before coming to maturity; the
general health of the tree also begins to fail, and it acquires a
blighted appearance. A loss of crop is this year sustained, but to no
great extent.
The third year brings about a more serious change, the whole plant
acquires a black hue, appearing as if soot had been thrown over it in
great quantities; this is caused by the growth of a parasitic fungus[1]
over the shoots and the upper surface of the leaves, forming a fibrous
coating, somewhat resembling velvet or felt. This never makes its
appearance till the insect has been a considerable time on the bush, and
probably owes its existence there to an unhealthy condition of the
juices of the leaf, consequent on the irritation produced by the coccus,
since it never visits the upper surface of the leaf until the latter has
fully established itself on the lower. At this period the young shoots
have an exceedingly disgusting look from the dense mass of yellow
pustular bodies forming on them, the leaves get shrivelled, and the
infected trees become conspicuous in the row. The black ants are
assiduous in their visits to them. Two-thirds of the crop is lost, and
on many trees not a single berry forms.
[Footnote 1: _Racodium?_ Species of this genus are not confined to the
coffee plant alone in Ceylon, but follow the "bugs" in their attacks on
other bushes. It appears like a dense interlaced mesh of fibres, each
made up of a single series of minute oblong vesicles applied end to
end.]
This _Lecanium_, or a very closely allied species, has been observed in
the Botanic Garden at Peradenia, on the _Citrus acida, Psidium
pomiferum, Myrtus Zeylanica, Rosa Indica, Careya arborea, Vitex
Negundo_, and other plants. The coffee coccus has generally been first
observed in moist, hollow places sheltered from the wind; and thence it
has spread itself even over the driest and most exposed parts of the
island. On some estates, after attaining a maximum, it has generally
declined, but has shown a liability to reappear, especially in low
sheltered situations, and it is believed to prevail most extensively in
wet seasons. While in its earlier stages, it is easily transmitted from
one estate to another, on the clothes of human beings, and in various
other ways, which will readily suggest themselves. Dr. Gardner, after a
careful consideration and minute examination of estates, arrived at the
conclusion, that all remedies suggested up to that time had utterly
failed, and that none at once cheap and effectual was likely to be
discovered. He seems also to have been of opinion that the insect was
not under human control; and that even if it should disappear, it would
only be when it should have worn itself out as other blighte have been
known to do in some mysterious way. Whether this may prove to be the
case or not, is still very uncertain, but every thing observed by Dr.
Gardner tends to indicate the permanency of the pest.
* * * * *
_List of Ceylon Insects._
For the following list of the insects of the island, and the remarks
prefixed to it, I am indebted to Mr. F. Walker, by whom it has been
prepared after a careful inspection of the collections made by Dr.
Templeton, Mr. E.L. Layard, and others: as well as of those in the
British Museum and in the Museum of the East India Company.[1]
[Footnote 1: The entire of the new species contained in this list have
been described in a series of papers by Mr. WALKER in successive numbers
of the _Annals of Natural History_ (1858-61): those, from Dr.
TEMPLETON'S collection of which descriptions have been taken, have been
at his desire transferred to the British Museum for future reference and
comparison.]
"A short notice of the aspect of the island will afford the best means
of accounting, in some degree, for its entomological Fauna: first, as it
is an island, and has a mountainous central region, the tropical
character of its productions, as in most other cases, rather diminishes,
and somewhat approaches that of higher latitudes.
"The coast-region of Ceylon, and fully one-third of its northern part,
have a much drier atmosphere than that of the rest of its surface; and
their climate and vegetation are nearly similar to those of the
Carnatic, with which this island may have been connected at no very
remote period.[1] But if, on the contrary, the land in Ceylon is
gradually rising, the difference of its Fauna from that of Central
Hindustan is less remarkable. The peninsula of the Dekkan might then be
conjectured to have been nearly or wholly separated from the central
part of Hindustan, and confined to the range of mountains along the
eastern coast; the insect-fauna of which is as yet almost unknown, but
will probably be found to have more resemblance to that of Ceylon than
to the insects of northern and western India--just as the insect-fauna
of Malaya appears more to resemble the similar productions of
Australasia than those of the more northern continent.
[Footnote 1: On the subject of this conjecture see _ante_, p. 60.]