eee “ repro ee I eS cae : pe a nn ee Tg ern a Sa a at et batons a : et Si ed PR “ = Fen geteP ahr SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. | } ISSUED BY THE COLOMBO MUSEUM. CHY LON. VOLUME I. COLOMBO : GEORGE J. A. SKEEN, GOVERNMENT PRINTER, CEYLON. 1904. lo CONTENTS OF VOLUME IL. Parr I.—AprRIL, 1903. Willey, A.— Constitution of the Fauna of Ceylon Manders, N.— Variation in Catochrysops pandava Mackwood, F. M.— Nyctalemon patroclus in Kandy oss Manders, N.— . Note on Mycalesis subdita... Willey, A.— The Mahseer and the Murrel in Ceylon Part Il.—Jvne, 1903. Reports and Correspondence concerning the Acclimatization of Ceylon Crows in the Malay Peninsula Camerano, L.— Gordians of Ceylon Green, E. E.— Notes on the Habits of the Green Whip-snake Notes and Reviews oe aa Part IJI.—NoveEMBER, 1903. Shipley, A. E.— Some Parasites from Ceylon im Thurn, E.— Sketch of the Ceylon Pearl Fishery of 1903 Lewis, F.— Nidification of Gallinago stenura Green, E. E.— Nesting Habits of Trypoxylon intrudens and Stigmus niger... Manders, N.— Further Note on Species of Mycalesis Notes.— 1. Loris Gracilis and Pentatomid Bug. E. E. Green 2. Pups of the Red Ant (@cophylla smaragdina). E. E. Green ose Ay A Case of Protective Mimicry. E. E. Green Habits of Whip-snake. E.E. Green ... Food of the Whip-snake. C. Drieberg Se oP 2Y910. PAGE 18 19 23 34 36 38 6. Hedgehogs in Ceylon. A. Willey 7. Dwarf Eggs of Domestic Fowl. A. Willey 8. Heralds of the Monsoons. A. Willey ... 9. Moths of Ceylon, Ed.... au 10. Some Rare Snakes of Ceylon. A. Willey Part IV.—Fepruary, 1904. Linstow, O. von— Nematoda in the Collection of the Colombo Museum Coomaraswamy, A. K.— Crystalline Rocks of Ceylon oe Notes.— 1. Uraninite. A. K, Coomaraswamy 2. Peregrine Earthworms. Ed. ; Rhynchota of Ceylon. Ed. re Dendrophis bifrenalis. Ed. 7 Symbiosis between Bees and Mites. Ed. ae PAGE 105 112 113 114 116 117 PREFACE. rerae| HE issue of the first volume of a new periodical publi- | cation seems to require afew words of introduction by way of apology. It may appear rash or even reckless to launch a new journal upon the already crowded sea of scientific literature and thereby increase, though to an infini- tesimal extent, the confusion of mankind. The experiment has nevertheless been sanctioned by Government, and it must be left to the future to decide with regard to its success or failure. Its justification will depend upon its success, and the latter will be determined not so much by the number of local subscribers as by the length of years during which it may be continued. ® It will be seen from the nature of the contents of the first volume that “ Spolia Zeylanica” contains matter of interest and intelligence to residents in the Island who are willing to give and take information of the kind vouchsafed to them in these pages. In a progressive Colony like Ceylon, where the aspect of the country is undergoing rapid change, records of apparently trivial observa- tions often acquire a cumulative importance in the course of years, and it should be considered an advantage to have the means of rendering permanent and available for future reference, notes ‘ on the habits of creatures which become more shy and difficult to procure as time goes on and the new order of things replaces the old. This is especially the case with those unapproachable people, the Veddas of Ceylon, and it is greatly to be hoped that those who have the opportunity of holding intercourse with this folk will rescue their vanishing traits from oblivion. A subject of this kind can never be exhausted, and the theory that the study of the manners and beliefs of primitive races belongs to the “ history of the folly of mankind” has long been exploded. The same principle applies to the Rodiyas and the Gypsies and to all who hold aloof from the great game of destiny. Ce. ¢ mee In addition to its function of conveying intelligence of local significance, this first volume is fortunate in having secured original contributions which constitute a distinct increase in our knowledge of the forms with which they deal. Other papers of an expert nature are in hand and will appear in the second volume. Of course it cannot be pretended that these articles will appeal very strongly to the personal proclivities of every reader of this journal. In such cases it can only be suggested that subscribers should rest content with the assurance that they are receiving good measure for their money and be satisfied with the crumbs which fall from the specialist’s table. The following libraries and bodies receive copies of “Spolia Zeylanica”’:— British Museum ; Natural History Museum, London; Royal Society, London ; Zoological Society, London ; Linnean Society, London; Entomological Society, London; Royal Colonial In- stitute, London; Editor of ‘“ Nature”; Editor of “‘ Athenzenm ”; Bodleian Library, Oxford; University Library, Cambridge ; Marshall Library, Owen’s College, Manchester; Manchester Museum; University College, Liverpool ; University of Birming- ham; Museums Association, Sheffield; Marine Laboratory, Plymouth. Library of Congress, Washington: U. S. National Museum, Washington ; Smithsonian Institution, Washington; Columbia University, New York; American Museum of Natural History, New York; Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.; Field Columbian Museum, Chicago ; Leland Stanford Junior University, California ; Carnegie Museum, Pittsburg; Philippine Museum, Manila. Australian Museum, Sydney ; Linnean Society of New South Wales, Sydney ; Entomological Branch, Department of Agricul- ture, Sydney; National Museum, Melbourne; Queensland Museum, Brisbane; South Australian Museum, Adelaide ; Tas- manian Museum, Hobart; Colonial Museum, Wellington, N. Z.; New Zealand Institute, Dunedin. Indian Museum, Calcutta; Government Museum, Madras ; Natural History Society, Bombay ; Raffles Museum, Singapore ; Sarawak Museum, Borneo. South African Museum, Cape Town ; Albany Museum, Grahams- town, Cape Colony ; School of Medicine, Cairo. Muséum histoire naturelle, Jardin des Plantes, Paris ; Muséum océanographique, Monaco. (=i) Kgl. Museum fiir Naturkunde, Berlin: Zoologisches Institut, Leipzig; Zool.-Zoot. Institut, Gottingen; Naturhistorisches Museum, Hamburg. Stazione Zoologica, Naples; R. Museo Zoologico, Turin : Museo civico di Storia naturale, Genoa. Kais, Akademie der Wissenschaften, St. Petersburg. Zoological Institute, University of Tokyo. ARTHUR WILLEY, Director, Colombo Museum. Colombo, January 2, 1904. ERRATA. Page 2.—Paragraph 2: for “there is not even one peculiar Mammalian species” read ‘there are not more than two or three peculiar Mammalian species.” Page 8.—Footnote : for “ Newton, A. A.” read “ Newton, A.” Page 18.—For “ Mycalesis subdita” read “M. rama.” See also page 71. Page 65.—Line 2: for “ chafering” read “ chaffering.” Page 78.—Paragraph 4: for “ Fregata aquila”’ read “‘ f, ariel.” SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. CONSTITUTION OF THE FAUNA OF GEYLON. By A. WILLEY. MONG the introductory paragraphs of Sir J. Emerson Tennent’s “Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon” (1861), the following quotation reproduced from his classical ‘** Account of the Island” (1859) contains a succinct statement of the principal literature written in the English language in which the Fauna of Ceylon had been dealt with ina more or less compre- hensive or special manner before his time. I will repeat in full the paragraph to which I am referring, because Sir Emerson Tennent’s words will perhaps form a fitting prelude to the quarterly record of observations and experiences, of which this is the first number to issue from the Ceylon Govern- ment Press :— Regarding the Fauna of Ceylon, little has been published in any collective form, with the exception of a volume by Dr. Kelaart, entitled Prodromus Fauune Zeylanice [1852] ; several valuable papers by Mr. Edgar L. Layard in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History for 1852 and 1853 ; and some very imperfect lists appended to Pridham’s Compiled Account of the Island [1849]. Knox, in the charming narrative of his captivity, published in the reign of Charles IT. [1681], has devoted a chapter to the animals of Ceylon, and Dr. Davy [1821] has described some of the reptiles ; but with these exceptions the subject is almost untouched in works relating to the Colony.” Yet a more than ordinary interest attaches to the inquiry, since Ceylon, instead of presenting, as is generally assumed, an identity between its fauna and that of Southern India, exhibits a remarkable diversity, taken in connection with the limited area over which the animals included in it are distributed. The Island, in fact, may be regarded as the centre of a geo- graphical circle, possessing within itself forms whose allied species radiate far into the temperate regions of the north as well as into Africa, Australia, and the Isles of the Eastern Archipelago. In the light of our present knowledge of zoogeography it is, no doubt, an exaggeration to claim Ceylon as an important centre of * Of course this reproach no longer holds good since the issue, under the editorship of Dr. W. T. Blanford, F.R.S., of many volumes of ‘The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and Burma,” a monumental work which was commenced in 1888 under the authority of the Secretary of State for India in Council, and is still in course of publication, new volumes being added to the series periodically. B 25-03 2 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. geographical distribution, since this would imply the existence in the insular fauna of more primitive components than is actually the case. Indeed, in its present position and configuration Ceylon can hardly be regarded, in any instance, as the feeder of the Indian Peninsula nor of any other zoological province, Of the thirty-nine genera of indigenous Mammalia not one is peculiar to the Island ; there is not even one peculiar Mammalian species, although there may be some insular races of continental species. The tailless lemur, locally known as the Ceylon Sloth (Loris gracilis),* rarely seen on account of its nocturnal and arboreal habits, though iiving in the outskirts of Colombo, is confined to Ceylon and to the Carnatic Tractt of Southern India, this being the most restricted range of any Indo-Ceylonese Mammal. All the other species of Mammals known to occur in Ceylon have a much more extended range, though some few are restricted to Ceylon and the Indian Peninsula, among the more notable examples of this kind being the Ceylon bear, which is co-specific with the Indian Sloth Bear (Melursus ursinus), the Scaly ant- eater or Indian pangolin (Manis pentadactyla),{ and the mouse- deer or Indian chevrotain (T’ragulus meminna).§ On the other hand, no fewer than fifteen genera of Mammals occur in the Indian Peninsula, which are not represented in Ceylon, the most prominent of these being four antelopes, namely, the Nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus), the four-horned antelope (Tetraceros quadricornis), the black buck (Antilope cervicapra), and the Indian gazelle (Gazella bennetti). The absence of antelopes from Ceylon may be looked uponas ranking among the “famous deficiencies” of the Island, analogous, for example, to the absence of snakes from Ireland, Iceland, and New Zealand. Other creatures whose presence in neighbouring countries renders their absence from Ceylon the more conspicuous are, for example, tigers, vultures, cranes, and hamadryads.|| The range of the hamadryad is approximately co-extensive with that of the cobra di capello (Nata tripudians) upon which, to a certain extent, it feeds. [See article by Vety. Capt. G. H. Evans on “The King Cobra or Hamadryad” in J. Bombay Soc., * Unahapuluwa of the Sinhalese. } Blanford, W.T. The distribution of vertebrate animals in India, Ceylon, and Burma. Phil. Trans. (Series B), vol. 194, pp. 335-436, 1901. t Kaballéwa, S. § Miminna, S.; sometimes called Wali-miya, S. ‘|| The Hamadryad or king cobra is named Naia bungarus on grounds of priority {see Boulenger,G. A. Fauna Brit. Ind. Reptilia and Batrachia, p. 392, 1890]. It is also widely known as Oyhiophagus elaps, its food consisting principally of other snakes, OTT SR wu i - i . re re oe Fic. 1.—GAUTAMA BUDDHA AND THE SERPENT MUCALINDA. From « wooden effigy in the Colombo Museum. Height of original, 1 foot 2 inches. To face p. 3) FAUNA OF CEYLON, 3 vol. XIV., pp. 409-418, 1902 ; also in the same Journal on p. 629,a note on the “Food of the King Cobra,” by H. H. Aitken]. But whereas the cobra occurs in Ceylon, where the manifold symbolic uses to which it has been put have rendered it sacred and classical, the more dreaded hamadryad is not found here. The shelter attributed to the Lord of Lanka beneath the mant- ling hood of the sacred Naga, cobra di capello, is a picturesque example of the ancient interpretation of divine influence in the Kast. The effigies which commemorate this miracle are executed in brass and wood (see Fig. 1), and are described as the “ Serpent- canopied Buddha” [cf. Sir M. Monier-Williams, “ Buddhism,” London, 1889, p. 480, and frontispiece ]. The examples of distribution selected from the Mammalian section of the fauna seem to indicate that Ceylon is an outlier of India rather than itself a centre of distribution, and that it bears the same relation to India that Tasmania does to the island continent of Australia or the British Isies to the continent of Europe. From this point of view the Fauna of Ceylon may be regarded as a Relict Fauna, the members of which have been separated from their continental allies by subsidence of land and encroachment of sea since the Tertiary Epoch. Excluding the category of Oceanic Islands, it is a generally accepted axiom that the terrestrial fauna of any island has reached its destination by means of former land connections between the island and neighbouring continental areas. Thus it is calculated that at least ninety-five per cent. of the British species of animals have reached the British Isles by previous land-connections with Scandinavia and the Arctic Continent in the north and with France and Belgium to the south-east.* Before proceeding further with our analytical sketch of the Fauna of Ceylon, it will be interesting to consider more closely (with the assistance of Dr. Blanford’s Memoir to which I have referred above) the relation of Ceylon to the Indian Peninsula. The Indian region is divided into two main sub-regions by the Indo-Gangetic Plain, which extends from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal and “forms a geological boundary of the highest importance,” The Transgangetic sub-region includes the Himalayas, Assam, Burma, &c. The Cisgangetic sub-region includes the Indian Peninsula proper and Ceylon. The Indian Peninsula is again divided into two very unequal ‘parts by the Western Ghats or Sahyadri mountains which separate *Scharff, R. F. The History of the European Fauna. London, 1899. (Contemp. Sci. Ser.) 4 SPOLIA ZRYLANIGCA. the Malabar Coast Tract from the Central Provinces and the Carnatic. The investigation of the fauna of Ceylon may be approached from at least three standpoints (excluding, for the moment, the economic side of the question), namely, zoogeographical, faunistic, and local or insular. Moreover, from whatever point of view the subject be regarded, the fauna of Ceylon presents a dual character. From its purely faunistic aspect the dual character of the fauna depends upon the fact that, in addition to the relict or continental types, to some of which allusion has already been made, Ceylon possesses an extensive series of endemic or peculiar types. Considered zoogeographically, it has been shown by Captain Legge* and by Dr. Blanford that the Ceylon area comprises two tracts, namely, the Northern Ceylon Tract, including the Northern and Eastern Provinces, with an average rainfall of about 50inches ; and, secondly, the Hill Ceylon Tract, comprising the Central, Western, and Southern Provinces, with an average rainfall exceed- ing 100 inches. The Northern Tract is defined by Dr. Blanford as being “in fact a part of the Carnatic with higher rainfall and with much more forest,” while the Hill Tract “must be regarded as a part of the Malabar Tract.” From the local or insular standpoint, the faunal elements are grouped under the two headings of low-country and up-country types. As might be expected, there is a great amount of over- lapping in the local distribution of particular species, and the special characteristics of the fauna of the various Provinces of the Island have yet to be ascertained with such precision, for example, as that with which the birds of Sabaragamuwa have been dealt with by Mr. F. Lewis.f It may be hoped that, in course of time, we shall obtain further information on this matter of local distribution by means of a system of careful records of the occurrence of species in different localities and at different times and seasons. Of the 360 species of birds which have been recorded from Ceylon, as many as forty-nine, or nearly one-seventh, are peculiar to the island. The number of genera in which the species are grouped is 240, of which, as noted by Dr. Blanford, eighty-two, or rather more than one-third, belong to one order, namely, the Passeres. Only six genera of birds are peculiar to the island, and five of these are passerine. *Legge, W. V. A History of the Birds of Ceylon (vide Introduction, p. xiii. London, 1880.) : + Lewis, F. Field-notes on the Land Birds of the Province of Sabaragamuwa, This, 1898, Part I., pp. 334-356 ; Part IT., pp. 524-551 Fias. 2 ANo 3.—OPHIOCEPHALUS STRIATUS (‘FROM ABOVE AND FROM BELOW). Photographed from a specimen in the Colombo Museum. To face p. 5) FAUNA OF CEYLON. 5 Certain genera and species of birds, reptiles, and batrachians are restricted to Ceylon and the Malabar Tract. Again, the distribution of some animals points to the existence of a decided Himalayan affinity in the fauna of Ceylon, in so far that certain genera, which are represented by isolated species in Ceylon, only occur otherwise in Transgangetic conntries, in some cases also in Malabar. Thus, the chestnut and blue magpie of Ceylon (Cissa ornaia*) and the yellow-fronted barbet (Cyanops flavifrons +), inhabitants of the upland forests, are peculiar to the island, while their congeners are Transgangetic and Himalayan species (Oates and Blanford). The remarkable legless Batrachian, Ichthyophis glutinosus, which is frequently dug out of its burrows in the plantations of Ceylon, and may be described as an eel-like, scale-bearing salamander, nearly black in colour with a bright yellow band running along each:side of the body, occurs in the “ Mountains of Ceylon, Malabar, Kastern Himalayas, Khasi Hills, Burma, Siam, Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Borneo, Java” (Boulenger, Fauna Brit. Ind, Reptilia and Batrachia, p. 516). The large tank fish “ lula” (plural “ lullu”’) of Ceylon (Ophio- cephalus striatus t), which belongs to a distinctively Oriental family, the Ophiocephalide, occurs “ throughout the plains of India, Ceylon, and Burma to China and the Philippines” (Day, Fishes of India, p. 366); but a nearly related fish (Channa orientalis §) of the same family, said to be common in the low- country paddy fields (Haly, M.8.), affords an excellent example of discontinuous distribution, occurring only in the fresh waters of Ceylon and China, being absent from the intervening countries (Day and Blanford). Besides the Himalayan or Transgangetic element in the fauna of Ceylon, there are other foreign representatives which deserve special mention, namely, the Malay, Mascarene (Madagascar and neighbouring islands), and Australian elements. * This bird is called the Ceylonese Jay by Legge [Birds of Ceylon, p. 353], and the Ceylonese Magpie by Oates [Oates, E. W. Fauna Brit. Ind. Birds, vol. I., p. 29, 1889], the explanation being that the genus Cissa is as nearly related to Pica, the Magpie, as it isto Garrulus, the Jay, neither of which cross the Ganges. The Ceylonese Jay or Magpie is not to be confounded with the common black and white Magpie-robin (Copsychus saularis) of Colombo and the low-country, the “Polli-cha” of the Sinhalese. The Magpie-robin also occurs in the Kandy District and elsewhere. + Described under the synonym of Megalema flavifrons by Legge [Birds of Ceylon, p. 212]. t Known as the “ Murrel” to Indian anglers (see Thomas, H.S. The Rod in India. Mangalore, 1873). § Kanaya, 8. Common at Kesbewa and in the Wellawatte canal. 6 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. Many of the characteristic forms of the Malay Peninsula and the Sunda Islands are conspicuous by their absence from Ceylon, e.g., the flying lemur (Galeopithecus volans) among Mammals, the flying lizard (Draco maculatus) among reptiles, the robber erab* (Birgus latro) among Crustacea, and the singular Proto- tracheate genus Peripatus. Itis therefore remarkable to learn that it is none the less possible to recognize a special Malay affinity in the fauna of Ceylon, exemplified by certain rare denizens of the dense forests and luxuriant gorges of the interior. Captain Legge has drawn attention to this point in the case of two birds, namely, Bligh’s whistling thrush (Arrenga blighit) and the red-faced malkoha or ground cuckoo (Phenicophaés pyrrhocephalus), both peculiar to Ceylon, but presenting near affinities to species from Java, Sumatra, and the Malay Peninsula. Even the elephant, “the lord paramount of the Ceylon forests,” has to be considered in this connection. Sir EK. Tennent, who was one of the first to recognize a Malayan affinity in the fauna and flora of Ceylon, records the fact, established independently by the Dutch anatomists Temminck and Schlegel, that the Ceylon elephant is identical with the Sumatran elephant, which Temminck named Hlephas sumatranus, and “differs as much from the elephant of India as “the latter from its African congener.” The specific distinction of the Sumatran from the Indian elephant is not commonly upheld now. The former is probably no more than an insular race of the Asiatic species, #. indicus. Several reptilian genera which are represented in Ceylon and the Eastern Archipelago are wanting in the Indian Peninsula. An interesting example of this kind is furnished by a small burrowing snake, Cylindrophis maculatus, one of those to which the term “depatnaya” is applied. It is common in Colombo, Balangoda, and elsewhere, and may be easily recognized by its glistening skin adorned with a network of dense black markings. The broad meshes of the network are occupied by brown pigment above and brilliant white below. A small tract on the upper lip below the eye on each side of the head, a pair of oblique tracts behind the eyes and the areas immediately behind the large triangular black patch on the head, separated from one another by a narrow median black stripe, are also dense white in colour. *The robber crab is found locally all over the Eastern Archipelago from Christmas Island to the Loyalty Islands, but west of the Straits it only occurs on the South Sentinel, an islet of the Andaman Group less than one square mile in extent, and in the Nicobar Islands (see Aleock, A. A. Naturalist in Indian Seas, 1902, pp. 83 and 151). +Syn. Myiophoneus blighi (Legge, Birds of Ceylon, p. 463]. t Tennent, vp, cit., pp. 64-68, FAUNA OF CEYLON. 7 These points are not very well shown in Fig.4. This earth-snake attains a length of about one foot with an even diameter of some five-sixteenths of an inch. As a species it is peculiar to Ceylon, but the genus is represented in the Malay Peninsula and Archi- pelago by a closely related species, Cylindrophis rufus. Fig. 4. Cylindrophis maculatus. From a specimen in the Colombo Museum, found in Colombo. About half natural size. Perhaps even more remarkable than the evidence of Himalayan and Malay components of the Ceylon fauna is that which relates to the Mascarene element. Madagascar is well known as the headquarters of lemurs and of chameleons,* harbouring more species of these animals than occur in any other quarter of the Old World. Ceylon possesses a single species of lemur, the Loris gracilis referred to above, and asingle species of chameleon (Chameleo calcaratus). 'True,chameleons are characterized by the great length of the tongue, by the mobility of the eyes (ensheathed within a circular eyelid which accompanies the eyeball in its rolling movements, each eyeball moving inde- pendently), and by the structure of the feet, which are specially adapted for climbing along the branches of the trees, having the toes closely webbed together into two groups. In the forefeet the two outer and the three inner toes are respectively united together, forming two divergent, opposable groups, while in the hind feet it is the three outer and the two inner toes which are thus united. * During the last century, precisely between the years 1800 and 1900, eighty- two species of ehameleons have been described. Of these, Madagascar possesses thirty-three species, thirty of which are peculiar. This is the highest percentage (91 per cent.) of endemicity in any zoological province in which chameleons occur. They are confined to the Old World, and the Indo-Ceylonese species marks the Eastern limit of'the family (see Werner, F. Prodromus einer Monographie der Chamaleonten. Zool, Jahrb. Syst., XV., 1902, p. 332). io 2) SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. All chameleons possess the faculty of changing colour, but all lizards which change colour are not chameleons, those which are commonly seen along the roadside in Ceylon belonging to a genus of Oriental lizards named Calotes by Cuvier. The true chameleon seems to be rare in Ceylon, and I have not seen one in the jungle hitherto, though the Colombo Museum possesses four specimens from four different localities, namely, Mullaittiva (W. Ferguson), Chilaw (H. Nevill), Puttalam (F. A. Fairlie), and finally, one which is said to hail from Colombo (A. Haly, Report on Reptilia in Col. Mus., 1891). The distribution of a genus of skinks (the family of lizards to which the Brahminy lizard, Mabwia carinata, belongs) named Acontias, also points to a marked Ethiopian (Mascarene and African) affinity in Ceylon. Fourspecies of Acontias are endemic in Ceylon, “none in any other part of the Indo-Malay region, two or three have been brought from Madagascar, four from South Africa” (Blanford, op. cit., 1901, p. 395).* Among the birds, the Drongos or king crows (Dicruride) point in the same direction, the black drongo (Dicrurus ater), which may be met with in the wayside jungle between Chilaw and Puttalam, being regarded by Oates as synonymous with the Edolius for ficatus of Madagascar, of which the term “ Drongo” is the original native name.f Fig. 5. Htroplus maculatus. From the Colombo Lake. A small fresh water fish which occurs in the Colombo lake, ealled “ Rallia” in Sinhalese (Htroplus maculatus), belongs to a * Dr, Alcock (A Naturalist in Indian Seas, 1902, see p. 140) mentions a small though gorgeously coloured Tree-gecko, Phelswma andamanense, which is peculiar to the Andamanese jungles, while its congeners are confined to Madagascar and the neighbouring islands, the Comoros, Mauritius, and the Seychelles. + Newton, A. A. Dictionary of Birds, London, 1893-1896. FAUNA OF CEYLON. 9 strictly Indo-Ceylonese genus (7.e., confined to Ceylon and the Indian Peninsula), whose nearest relative is the genus Paretroplus of Madagascar (Day, F., Fishes of India, 1878, p. 414). The Land Mollusea of Ceylon are highly peculiar, and the largest of them are the species of the genus Acavus, which is confined to Ceylon, but exhibits close relationship with the genus Helicophanta of Madagascar.* The earthworms} of Ceylon inelude no fewer than thirty endemic species, of which seventeen belong to the genus Mega- scolex, whose headquarters are in Australia, while eight other species of the same family (Jegascolecide) belong to genera which, until recent years, had only been met with on the Australian Continent, namely, the two genera Cryptodrilus and Megascolides. One Ceylon species of Megascolex (M. armatus) occurs also in Madagascar, Zanzibar, and several other localities, though there is some doubt as to how far this species may have been accidentally conveyed from place to place by shipping. The second family of Ceylon earthworms (Moniligastride) is represented by four species of Moniligaster, which is a dominant East Indian or Malayan genus. The Ceylon earthworms therefore afford an indication of the existence of an Australian element in the fauna, which might be further illustrated by examples taken from other groups of terres- trial invertebrates. Thus, the snail Acavus appears, from the large size of the egg and of the embryonic shell which forms within it, to be as nearly related to the Australian genus Panda as to the Mascarene genus Helicophanta (Cooke, op. cit.). The application of these facts to the theory of geographical distribution can only be indicated here in the briefest manner. The Island of Celebes is to the Oriental region what New Zealand is to the Australian region. The Fauna of Celebes is one of the most peculiar insular faunas in the world. Professor Semon has | voiced a widely held opinion that Celebes has received the most characteristic members of its fauna, such forms as the monkey (Cynopithecus), the deer (Anoa), the pig (Babirussa), the lemur (Tarsius), &c., from the west, either from Asia or from a huge continent or archipelago which spread far to the West, of which Madagascar is perhaps the last remnant.{ Of course Ceylon must also have formed part of this continent, the Lanka of the ancients, * * Cooke, A. H. Molluscs. Cambridge Nat. Hist., 1895, see pp. 303 and 355. The genus Acavus comprises the common Ceylon snails which are seen adhering to the trunks of trees and to fences in most parts of the Island. 7 Michaelsen, W. Die Terricolenfauna Ceylons. Mt. Mus, Hamburg, XIV., 1897, 94 pp., 1 plate. { Semon, R. In the Australian Bush. London, 1899. Cc ’ 25-03 10 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. and the hypothesis may serve as a provisional guide to the interpretation of the composite nature of the fauna of the Island. The instances quoted above by no means exhaust the list of the heterochthonous* elements in the fauna of Ceylon, but they serve to illustrate the fact that the Island has special zoogeographi- cal relationships indicative of former geological connections, either directly or indirectly, with the Malay Peninsula and Eastern Archipelago, with the Indian Peninsula, and with Madagascar. Turning now to a brief consideration of that portion of the fauna which is peculiar to Ceylon, the great class of the Arthro- poda, comprising the Millipedes and Centipedes, Insects, Crusta- ceans, and Spiders, naturally furnishes the most abundant, though perhaps not the most striking evidence of endemicity. In fact, with the exception of the highest and of the lowest classes of animals (Mammalia and Infusoria respectively), all the principal divisions of the animal kingdom are represented by various percentages of endemic types. Besides those which have been incidentally referred to above, it is well known that the Ceylon jungle fowl (Gallus stanley?), which is such a familiar feature of jungle life, is a peculiar species found only in Ceylon, while the equally familiar peafowl (Pavo cristatus) ranges over the whole of the Indian Peninsula, being replaced in Burma, Malacea, and Java by the Burmese or Javan peafowl (Pavo muticus). Of all the vertebrates of Ceylon, it is the order of Reptilia which best illustrates, within a small compass, the distinguishing characteristics of the insular fauna. Although the degree of endemicity in the fauna of Ceylon does not extend beyond the possession of peculiar genera, yet there is a group of burrowing snakes, the Uvopeltide (generally known as earth-snakes), which is restricted to Ceylon and the India Peninsula, and is therefore to be noted, in a special sense, as a peculiar Indo-Ceylonese family. These snakes are called “ depatnaya”} in Sinhalese, on account of the similar appearance of both extremities of the body, and of their faculty of gliding with equal facility forwards and back- wards. Reverse locomotion is occasionally met with in other animals, and it always exercises a somewhat weird effect upon the imagination of the onlooker. * Perhaps such archaic forms as Channa orientalis and Ichthyophis glutinosus are to be regarded as truly autochthonous species which have survived fluctuations of time, climate, and topography, having inhabited the regions in which they are now found from remote periods preceding the arrival of later immigrants. + As mentioned above, the genus Cylindrophis is also called “depatnaya,” but it belongs to a different family, the Zlysiide. Fie. 6.—SCOLOPENDRA BICOLOR, HumeBerrt. A brilliant black and yellow centipede (the lighter portions are bright yellow, the head orange-coloured ). Found in the sandy jungle bordering the sea from Puitalam to Trincomalee. It has a wide distribution in the East Indies. [Vo sace p. 10 Fic. 7.—CERATOPHORA STODDARTII (From Nuwara ELIA). Photographed from a living specimen at the Colombo Museum, To face p. 11) FAUNA OF CEYLON. 1] Some forty species of Uropeltide have been described, of which seven are known to be peculiar to Ceylon, but it is probable that more species remain to be recorded. Three genera of lizards are peculiar to Ceylon, namely, Cerato- phora ‘with three species, the horned lizards of Nuwara Eliya, Lyriocephalus, the hump-nosed lizard of the Kandyan District, and Chalcidoseps a rare skink allied to Acontias, not represented in the Colombo Museum. There are still two other categories of animals which play their part in the life of the island, and should therefore be mentioned before concluding this essay, namely, animals which have been introduced by human agency, and secondly, the domesticated animals. Of the introduced animals the most important is the so-called hog-deer (Cervus porcinus), also known as the paddy-field deer (Wil-muwa in Sinhalese), which is said to have been introduced by the Dutch into the Kalutara District of the Western Province, but IT have not succeeded in finding any record of the date or motive of its acclimatization. It is normally an inhabitant of the Indo- Gangetic Plain, but not of the Indian Peninsula in the strict sense. Hence it is assumed by some authorities* that its presence in Ceylon is not an example of natural discontinuous distribution but of artificial introduction. First in importance of the domesticated animals (apart from the elephant) are of course the draught-bulls which are of the three familiar kinds, the small Ceylon Bulls, the stately Brahminy Bulls which figure in procession with elephants, horses, and lions, upon the ancient moonstones of Anuradhapura, and lastly, the shaggy Indian Buffaloes, with which the wild buffaloes associate while grazing at the borders of the jungle. The present position of Ceylon relatively to the Asiatic Continent and to the world in general has been roughly defined iu the preceding lines in terms of its terrestrial fauna, and a brief reference has been made to a distribution of land and water in ancient geological times differing completely from that which we now know. On the first pages of Dr. Alcock’s new and richly illustrated bookf the same subject is touched upon from the marine side. After premising that the seas of India are three—to wit, the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Andaman Sea— * Hg., Mr. R. Lydekker and Dr. W. T. Blanford. y Alcock, A. A,Naturalist in Indian Seas; or, Four Years with the Royal Indian Marine Survey Ship “Investigator.” London (John Murray), 1902. Iam indebted to the courtesy of the Hon. Mr. John Ferguson for my first acquaintance with this charming narrative. 12 SPOLIA ZEYLANIGA. Dr. Alcock gives expression to the opinion that these seas were formerly part of a great inland ocean, “ of which the present Mediterranean is the shrunken remains. Peninsular India and Ceylon then formed a great island-continent, connected by a chain of large islands—of some of which the Maldives and Chagos and Seychelles are the tombstones—with Madagascar and South Africa, and separated from the present heart of Asia by a deep channel—a channel perhaps traversed, much as now the West Indies traverse the Caribbean, by a series of islands, which may have been lowly precursers of the Himalayas; for these gigantic mountains are of quite recent origin.” The distribution of certain deep-sea fishes and other animals can (so far as our present knowledge of the abyssal regions of the ocean extends) only be rendered intelligible by some such inference as that just quoted. A fish belonging to the family of the Weevers or Trachinide was first discovered in Japanese waters and named Bembrops caudimacula by Professor Steindachner of Vienna in 1877. Three years later it was again discovered in the Gulf of Mexico, and several years afterwards it was found by the “ Investi- gator”? to belong also to the fauna of the 100-fathom line in the Bay of Bengal, having been trawled in 128 fathoms off the Coro- mandel Coast.* From a depth exceeding 700 fathoms near the Laccadives a gigantic Crustacean named Bathynomus giganteus, belonging to the same order (Isopoda) as the common wood-louse, was brought to the surface by the “ Investigator.” It was first obtained about twenty years ago at a depth of 955 fathoms in the Gulf of Mexico to the north-east of Yucatan, and was described by the late Pro- fessor A. Milne-Edwards of Paris. A specimen of this wonderful abyssal Isopod, measuring 12 inches in length and 4 inches across, has been more recently dredged off the north-east coast of Ceylon in 594 fathoms.t Many other examples of similar distribution of marine animals which live and feed on the sea-bottom are known. Of these, one of the most notable instances is afforded by the so-called King Crabs of the genus Limulus, which are found living in shallow water at certain localities on the Japanese, Moluccan, Malaccan, and Indian coasts, and also off the east coast of New England and in the West Indies. The genus Limulus, of which a number of fossil species dating back to the Carboniferous and Jurassic formations have been * Alcock, op. cit., p. 120. ¢ Alcock, op. cit., pp. 127 and 271. Itisa matter for regret that the Colombo Museum does not profit by these new discoveries. Fic. 8.—LIMULUS (FRom DutTcH Bay). From a dried specimen in the Colombo Museum. [To face p, 12 FAUNA OF CEYLON. 13 unearthed, while four species are still living, is one of those animal types which are of peculiar interest to the morphologist on account of their ancient lineage (a record of which has been preserved in the sedimentary rocks), their primitive or generalized organization, and their manifold affinities. There is an imperfect specimen of Limulus moluccanus* in the Colombo Museum, labelled “ Dutch Bay,” but no further informa- tion is available, and the fishermen of Karativu know nothing about the creature. Colombo, February 5, 1903. _* For the most recent account of the classification and distribution of the Limulide, see Pocock, R. I. The taxonomy of recent species of Limulus, Ann. Nat. Hist. (7th series), vol. IX., pp. 256-266, pl. V.-VI., 1902. For an account of the morphology and affinities of Limulus, Professor E, Ray Lankester’s article “ Arachnida” in the first of the new volumes of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1902) should be consulted, 14 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA, VARIATION OF “CATOCHRYSOPS PANDAVA,” Horsfield. By N. MANDERS, Major, R.A.M.C. SERIES of five males and ten females of this Lycenid Butterfly, reared by Dr. Willey, and submitted to me with the remark that they were hatched on July 4, 1902, from larve collected from a species of Cycas in the Museum grounds, show an aberration which is especially noticeable in the females, and is worthy of record as an example of non-seasonal variation. The five males are of the ordinary rain season form, and do not vary on the upper side of the wings beyond an intensification of the dark pigment inside the posterior border in three of them, giving rise to dark lens-shaped spots, which are not conspicuous in the other two specimens. The females are also of the rain season form, and present an interesting series showing gradual diminution of pigment in the posterior margin of the hind wing. Two of them may be regarded as typical examples of the species C.pandava ; four of the others show a whitish suffusion of the pos- terior margin on the upper surface between the veins and above the black lunules, but separated from them by some blackish scales. In the remaining four females the black lunules are entirely replaced by white, the veins however remaining black ; the whitish suffusion above the lunules has become concentrated into sles lee ; Pw kel definite white lunules, though not of so of variation in thesubmarginal glear a white as the marginal lunules; pigment spots of the hind , : . wing. the blackish line between the series of outer and inner lunules still persists. In all these specimens the black lunule or ocellus external to the tail-like appendage of the CATOCHRYSOPS PANDAVA. 1s) hind wing persists as a much reduced black spot almost circular, crowned internally with a few orange scales ; in two individuals a few black scales represent the lunules internal to the tail. On the under surface in both sexes the changes, as regards the presence or absence of the marginal spots, are the same, except that the ocellus and anal spots persist more conspicuously .* Colombo, December 17, 1902. * For an account of the seasonal variations of Catochrysops pandava see Marshall and De Nicéville, ‘The Butterflies of India, Burma, and Ceylon,” Vol. ITI., Calcutta, 1890, p. 183, pl. XXVIL., figs. 187 and 188. 16 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. “NYCTALEMON PATROCLUS” IN KANDY. By F. M. MACKWOOD. YCTALEMON PATROCLUS is a moth of large size belong- ing to the family Uraniide. The colour of the wings is a varying shade of smoky brown or sepia, speckled with black and with a straight whitish band across the middle. The species has been recorded from China, Sylhet, Burma, Andamans, Malacca, Philippines, and Papuan sub-region.* Last December (1902) a specimen was caught in Lady Horton’s walk, Kandy, this being its first record for Ceylon. Since then another example has been caught on the bank of the river near Kandy, and was purchased by a tourist. The span of the wings (7.e., from tip to tip of the fore wings) is ®o} inches, and the distance from the tip of the fore wing to the tail of the hind wing is also 54 inches in the expanded condition. [It is somewhat remarkable that such a large species should have escaped notice for so long, especially when we take into consider- ation the number of collectors who have worked in the Kandy District. Fresh records of its occurrence will be awaited with interest, and it must be left to the future to decide whether it is an accidental immigrant or a normal incoline.—ED. ] 111-112, fig, 57. NYCTALEMON PATROCLUS. Fig. 11. Nyctalemon patroclus, Linn., é (Colln. F. M. Mackwood). Drawn from the original specimen lent to the Colombo Museum, Natural size, 17 25-03 18 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. NOTE “ON MYCALESIS SUBDITA,” Moore. By N. MANDERS, Major, R.A.M.C. HIS species was originally described by Moore* from speci- mens collected at Udugama near Galle by Mr. John Pole. A pair is now in the Museum collection. So far as I know, very few specimens have been taken, but it probably only requires to be looked for at almost any time of the year in its particular haunts amongst bamboos, on which the larva probably feeds. With such few specimens to judge from, it is perhaps not quite certain that it is a good species, but to my mind it looks distinct enough. In looking over Mr. Mackwood’s collection of South Indian butterflies I was greatly interested to notice two specimens of this insect, which agree exactly with the types in the Museum; the insect therefore is of wider distribution than has been hitherto supposed ; the specimens are unfortunately without labels, and the locality of capture is doubtful. Colombo, December 17, 1902, * Described in Moore’s great iconographic work “ Lepidoptera Indica,” now being issued in parts. It is also described briefly by L. de Nicéville and Major Manders in their joint work, entitled “A List of the Butterflies of Ceylon, with Notes on the Various Species,” in Journ, Asiat. Soc,, Bengal. Vol. LX VIII., Part II., 1899, p. 181. THE MAHSEER AND THE MURREL IN CEYLON. 19 THE MAHSEER AND THE MURREL IN CEYLON. By A. WILLEY. HE Mahseer is probably the most admired game fish of India, and, in the opinion of experts, shows more sport than the salmon ; not that it sustains so long a contest, but makes a more im- petuous rush.* Itis known to occurin the perennial rivers of the Bengal, Madras, and Bombay Presidencies, but anglers are not altogether satisfied that it occurs in Ceylon, although ichthyologists are aware that it does (cf. Day, “ Fishes of India,” p. 307). Fig. 12. Barbus tor. Sketch based upon a figure in Day’s “ Fishes of India.” The fact is that the mahseer is an exceedingly variable kind of barbel, exhibiting both local and individual variations, and different specimens may appear, at first sight, to be utterly dis- tinct, owing to the circumstance that certain individuals possess a curious bilabiate growth proceeding from the upper and lower lips, while others, for some unaccountable reason, have no such lobes.t| Whether or not this is a sexual character or a seasonal variation or a mere sport, 1 am unable to say. The specimen which I have examined, caught by Mr. C. A. Hartley in the Sitala-ganga, in which the processes were well developed, was a young male. * Thomas, H.S., “ The Rod in India.” Mangalore, 1873, I am indebted to this book for details concerning the habits of the Mahseer. I also take this opportunity of acknowledging with thanks the receipt of specimens of the Ceylon mahseer from Mr, C, A. Hartley of Maskeliya and from Mr, A. C. W. Clarke of Pundalu-oya. } The bilabiate form of the mahseer bears a striking resemblance to a fish recently described by Mr. G. A. Boulenger from the Kenya District in East Africa. under the name Barbus labiatus, n. sp. (P. Zool. Soc., London, 1902, p. 223. pl. XVIL., fig..1.) 20 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. The Ceylon mahseer (Barbus tov’)* is co-specitic with the Indian mahseer, though, perhaps, if a sufficient number of specimens were measured, weighed, and compared, it would be found to constitute an insular race of the species. With regard to dimensions, Mr. Thomas notes an interesting correlation between the size of the Indian mahseer and that of the rivers which these fishes frequent, unfortunately without tabulating his observations nor even naming the rivers. “In some rivers,” he says, “they do not run above 10 or 12 lb., whereas in others they have been taken weighing 40 lb. and 50 Ib., and even as much as 74 lb.” f It is instructive to learn that the size, or what comes to the same thing, the importance of the fish caught, does not bear any sort of relation to the size of the bait used to tempt him, very small fishes being often captared upon very large spoons and vice versd. The mahseer is essentially a ground-feeding fish, preferring a diet of crabs, molluscs, and small fish. Like all members of the Carp family (Cyprinide), to which it belongs, its jaws are toothless and it kills its victims by compression, afterwards crunching them to fragments by means of teeth which are set far back in the throat, borne upon the inferior pharyngeal bones; these are the pharyn- geal or throat-teeth. The mahseer will also devour seeds which fall into the water, or rice which may be thrown in, as well as aquatic weeds and insects. Finally it is, to a limited extent, a surface-feeder, and will take the fly. The barbels or feelers, four in number,{t which fringe the mouth, are organs which are specially characteristic of bottom-feeding fishes, such as the barbels and catfishes (Si/wridw). The fleshy lips of the mahseer are well adapted to exert a powerful suctorial action upon rocks and stones, by which it is enabled to detach the molluscs which adhere to them, According to Mr. Thomas’s observations, the mahseer travels long distances up stream during the monsoon rains for the purpose of depositing its spawn in the more or less protected head- waters of the rivers. It does not spawn all at once, as the salmon does, but lays its eggs in batches, repeating the process several times in a season. This, it should be added, is inferred from examination of the ovaries, and is not the result of direct * Synonymous with Barbus mosal, The Sinhalese name is Léla. + Mr. C. A. Hartley informed me last June (1902) that he had never taken one weighing above 2 or 3 lb. from the Sitala-ganga, but that probably larger indi- viduals would be met with in the main Maskeliya river into which the Sitala- ganga flows. The largest specimen received at the Museum measured somewhat less than a foot in length. + A rostral pair and a longer maxillary pair. THR MAHSEER AND THE MURREL IN CEYLON. 21 observation. The result of this graduated oviposition is that the mahseer, unlike the spent salmon, never becomes so emaciated as to be unfit for human food. It may be useful to sportsmen and naturalists living in out- stations to explain the manner in which the mahseer in particular, and freshwater fishes in general, may be identified. The mahseer may be recognized in the open by its fighting qualities, and in the laboratory or museum by the arrangement of its scales. Down each side of the body from the gill region to the tail fin there is one row of scales, which exhibits a series of minute perforations. These are the orifices of small tubular sensory organs composing the so-called lateral line apparatus, which is innervated by a special branch of the tenth cranial nerve known as the lateral line nerve. The number of scales in the lateral line is an important diagnostic feature in the determination of any species of fish, taken, naturally, in conjunction with its other characters, ¢.g., presence or absence of teeth, presence or absence of barbels, number of fin-rays in the fins, especially in the dorsal and anal fins. The mahseer has no jaw teeth; it has two pairs of barbels, twelve rays in the dorsal fin, of which the first three are osseous (the first very small), seven or eight rays in the anal fin, of which the first two or three are osseous, and twenty-four or twenty-five scales in the lateral line.* The tail fin is forked. Inthe middle line of the back there are nine scales in front of the dorsal fin. The body is elongated, the height being equal to about one-fourth _ of the length excluding the caudal fin. Just as the mahseer, from an angling point of view, takes the place, in India and Ceylon, of the salmon of the West, so the murrel may be regarded as representing the pike in the economy of the inland waters, although all these fishes belong to totally distinct families. The murrel or lula (Ophiocephalus striatus) is a large, nearly black, somewhat flat-headed fish, with long, many-rayed dorsal and anal fins and rounded tail fin (see fig. 2 facing p. 5). The dorsal and anal fins end abruptly behind and are not continuous with the tail fin. The lateral line does not extend in a straight line from the gill region of the head to the tail, but is bent downwards over two rows of scales at the level of the twelfth dorsal fin-ray, and is thence continued to the base of the tail fin. The Indian murrel attains a length of 2 to 3 feet. The Colombo Museum has a specimen of the Ceylon murrel with total length of *Tn the case of the Indian Mahseer the number of scales in the lateral line is twenty-five to twenty-seven according to Giinther and Day. 92 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 2 feet 3 inches and maximum breadth across the head of 4 inches; height of body behind pectoral fins 35 inches (without reckoning the dorsal fin); weight (after removal of gut) nearly 4 Ib. The Ophiocephalide are commonly known as walking fishes on account of the fact that they are able to exist for lengthened periods out of water and can travel in a serpentine manner overland. Day* witnessed the exhumation of some Ophiocephali from the mud of a dried-up tank. They are capable of an amphibious mode of respiration in virtue of the existence of air cavities in the head (accessory to the true gill cavities), which impart a more or less labyrinthine structure to the pharyngeal bones though not so complicated as the elaborate suprabranchial apparatus of the Climbing Perch (Anabas scandens), the “ Kavaiya” of the Sinhalese. The climbing and burrowing fishes of Ceylon were treated at considerable length by Sir E. Tennent, who reminded his readers that these phenomena.were known to the ancients. “It is an illustration,” he says on p. 344 of his work on the Natural History of Ceylon, “of the eagerness with which, after the expedition of Alexander the Great, particulars connected with the natural history of India were sought for and arranged by the Greeks, that in the works both of Aristotle [De Respiratione] and Theophrastus [De Piscibus in sicco. degentibus] facts are recorded of the fishes in the Indian rivers migrating in search of water, of their burying themselves in the mud on its failure, of their being dug out thence alive during the dry season, and of their spontaneous re-appearance on the return of the rains.” Last year I picked up a “ Kavaiya” which was toiling along the wayside in the Southern Province, and on arrival at the next resthouse placed it in a basin of water for the night. At daybreak the fish was found healthy and active on the floor, while the basin was tenanted by a drowned rat. Pe eee Oe ee re ere UE * Day, F., “ Fauna Brit. Ind.: Fishes,” Vol, IL, p. 359. CEYLON CROWS IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 23 ACCLIMATIZATION OF CEYLON CROWS IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. INTRODUCTION. HE transportation of an experimental consignment of common gray crows (Corvus splendens) to Penang at the request of the Resident-General of the Federated Malay States was briefly mentioned in the Administration Report of the Colombo Museum for the year 1902. As thisis a matter of public importance besides having a certain scientific interest, it has been decided to publish the following correspondence, reports, and notes relating thereto. ARTHUR WILLEY, Colombo, March 30, 1903. Director, Colombo Museum. The Resident-General, Federated Malay States, to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary, Ceylon. Resident-General’s Office, Selangor, Malay Peninsula, July 30, 1902. S1rR,—I HAVE the honour to ask you to be so good as to peruse enclosed copy of a letter, dated 22nd July current, which has been addressed to me by a prominent planter, Mr. E. V. Carey, who is Chairman of the United Planters’ Association, Federated Malay States, advocating the importation of crows from Ceylon in the hope and expectation that they might prove beneficial in keeping _ down the numbers of the caterpillars which occasionally devastate estates in this country. ~I shall be greatly obliged if you will inform me whether I can rely onthe good offices of the Government of Ceylon in this matter. I have, &c., W. H. TREACHER, Resident-General, Federated Malay States. E 25-03 24 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. E. V. Carey, Esq., Chairman of the United Planters’ Association, Federated Malay States, to the Resident-General, Federated Malay States. Klang, Selangor, July 22, 1902. Sir,—I HAVE the honour to report that during the recent severe attack of caterpillars* on Bukit Raja estate some forty crows assembled and helped in the destruction of both caterpillars and chrysalids. You will agree with me that this is a very unusually large number of these birds to be found in this country. 2. About the year 1885 the Ceylon cinchona plantations were devastated by a caterpillart of the same family as that which has so often severely attacked our coffee over here, and it is well within the writer’s memory that tens of thousands of crows came to the rescue and practically annihilated the caterpillars. 3. The Ceylon crow is a somewhat different bird to that found in the Malay Peninsula, but I think there can be no doubt that they would soon settle down over here if imported in sufficient numbers; they are the most useful of scavengers, and however much their numbers increased, would do no harm. 4, I would therefore suggest that overtures might be made to the Ceylon Government for shipment to this country of a large number of these birds, which could easily be collected if a small sum for each good healthy specimen were offered. ). I believe that a fair proportion of the cost would be sub- scribed by proprietors of estates, but it is obvious that no overtures on the part of private individuals would stand the same chance of success as a representation from one Government to the other. 6. Within my knowledge there are six different caterpillars, attacking coffee, Para-rubber, Ficus elastica, cocoanuts, croton, and castor oil, which might at one time become gravely epidemic. All of these the crows would help to keep down, and I therefore earnestly beg your kind consideration of my suggestion. I have, &c., —_—— K. V. CAREY. Report of the Director of the Colomho Museum tv the Hon. the Colonial Secretary. I UNDERSTAND that the principal point upon which I have to report relates to the feasibility of transport and possibility of acclimatization of Ceylon crows in the Malay States. * Mr. E. E. Green says that the caterpillars referred to are the larve of Cepho- nodes hylas, the clear-winged hawk moth. + The caterpillar of the oleander moth (Daphnis nerii). Both Cephonodes and Daphnis belong to the family of the Sphingide. * MY) CEYLON CROWS IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 15) t 2. I think it would be comparatively easy to collect a large quantity of living crows here. 3. It would be necessary to construct an aviary for their reception and temporary storage. 4, They would of course have to be fed. 5. It would be of the nature of an experiment to ascertain how they behave in captivity. 6. From the analogy of other cases it may be said that itis quite probable, but not certain before trial, that they would accustom themselves to their new surroundings in the Malay States. 7. Their homing instincts appear to be strongly developed. 8. I have not been able to find any record of the visitation of caterpillars in the Ceylon cinchona plantations about the year US a ee 9. There are many caterpillars which are obnoxious to birds. 10. In the report on the Java Cinchona Plantations for 1883 (extracted in the Tropical Agriculturist, Vol. IV., 1885, p. 378) concerning the injuries inflicted by Helopeltis antonii and the ravages of a caterpillar, it is stated that “in regard to both, there seems to be but one remedy, the constant search for, capture, and destruction of the pestiferous insects.” 11. If the proposed acclimatization be persevered in, I think it would be well to send over a small experimental batch of Ceylon crows to find out howthey support the voyage, whether they would eat the caterpillars......... if offered to them; and eventually to let them go free ina circumscribed area and note as far as possible their subsequent behaviour. 12. It is well known that the introduction of exotic species of animals* and plants, although frequently beneficial, is sometimes attended by serious consequences, disturbing the natural equi- librium of a country in a deplorable manner. ARTHUR WILLEY, August 19, 1902. Director, Colombo Museum. The Resident-General, Federated Malay States, to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary, Ceylon. Resident-General’s Office, Taiping, October 1, 1902. Sir,—lI am directed by the Resident-General to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 29th August last, with its enclosure, regarding the importation of crows from Ceylon to the Federated * Examples of introduced animals which have multiplied beyond bounds are afforded by the rabbit pest in Australia, the mongoose in Jamaica, and the English sparrow in the United States of America.—A, W. 26 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA, Malay States, and to express his cordial thanks to the Ceylon Government for the promise of assistance in this matter, and to Mr. Willey, Director of the Colombo Museum, for his report. 2. Iam to inquire whether the Ceylon Government would be good enough to permit, and the Director be good enough to under- take to act on, the suggestions contained in paragraph 11 of his report and send over an experimental consignment of fifty crows at the expense of this Government, addressed to care of A. D. Neubronner, Esq., Perak Government Agent, Penang, to be forwarded to E. V. Carey, Esq., Klang, and to telegraph to Mr. Neubronner the name of the steamer and the date of despatch. 3. Mr. Carey, to whom the report of the Director was referred, has made the following suggestions :— “1 should say that the initial experiment might be confined to the capture of, say, fifty crows, rough wooden or bamboo cages being constructed for them and food supplied until they began either to die or to settle down sufficiently to admit of their being shipped across with a reasonable chance of arriving in good con- dition. Perhaps the Director of the Ceylon Museum would undertake the preliminary steps, or arrange for the fifty crows to be delivered, in good condition and well fed, on board ship. It would obviously be out of the question for a man to be sent over to Ceylon from here to attend to the matter, until, at any rate, it has been shown that the birds will stand confinement and the voyage across, and even then it would be cheaper and probably more satisfactory to contract for their delivery in large numbers on board ship in Colombo.” 4. Mr. Carey adds :— “Whilst on this subject I should mention that Mr. E. B. Prior of the Golden Hope estate, Selangor, reports that he has shot several crows amongst his cocoanuts, having found them knocking down and destroying the blossom. I cannot but believe that there is some mistake about this, but would suggest that the Director be asked whether there is any danger of anything of the sort occurring or if any similar experience has been recorded in Ceylon.” 5. The Resident-General will be much obliged if the above paragraph may be referred to Mr. Willey for his consideration. Tam, &c., C. W. H. COCHRANE, for Acting Secretary to Resident-General, Fig. 18. CAGE CONTAINING COLOMBO CROWS, TRANSPORTED TO SELANGOR, Yo face p. 29) CEYLON CROWS IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 27 Report of the Director of the Colombo Museum to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary. IT is not, I believe, the general experience that crows are detri- mental to cocoanut trees. They are rather to be regarded as useful birds, and in the instance quoted relating to the Golden Hope estate, Selangor, it is not unlikely that they were in search of the injurious cocoanut beetles which attack the cabbage of the cocoanut palms. If this be so, the crows might incidentally have done some damage without destructive intent. October 18, 1902. ARTHUR WILLEY. N.B.—It has frequently happened that.insectivorous birds, which are really beneficial to man, have been blamed for the damage inflicted by their prey. In cases of doubt the truth may be ascertained by examination of the contents of the stomachs of the suspected birds. Ac We In consequence of the preceding correspondence steps were taken to secure a number of crows, and it was made known to the proprietors of boutiques where crows congregate that a price would be paid for every crow brought alive to the Museum. But crows are among the most intelligent of birds; they are not to be taken by frontal attack, and can rarely be captured by stratagem during the daytime. It is necessary to organize night surprises in the retreats where they roost. The most famous nocturnal retreat for the crows of Colombo is Crow island, which lies in the Kelani-ganga near its mouth, not far from the Leper Hospital at Hendala. The Superintendent of the Leper Asylum, Dr. W. H. Meier, was good enough to make representations to the villagers in that neighbourhood on behalf of the Museum, with the result that the full complement of crows was speedily obtained. A black carrion crow (Corvus macrorhynchus) was brought to the Museum on the 24th October. It was fed upon rice which it vomited up, and died the next day. The stomach contained fragments of beetles (Buprestide); the intestine was parasitised by eight or nine cestode worms; the skin was covered by an immense multitude of minute acarids, Three gray crows* (Corvus splendens) were caught near a butcher’s shop and brought on the 29th October. During the day one became lame, sickened, andshortly died. Perhaps it had been * Commonly known as the Indian crow. This species also occurs in every inhabited island of the Maldive group, but not on Minicoy. (See Dr. H. Gadow’s Report on “ Aves” in “The Fauna and Geography of the Maldive and Laccadive Archipelagoes,” edited by J, Stanley Gardiner, M.A., Vol. I., Part IV., 1903, p. 373.) 28 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA, hit by a stone, as the left thigh was suffused below the skin and the right tibio-tarsal joint was swollen to about twice the normal size. During the succeeding days gray crows continued to arrive singly or in couples until the 8th November, when twenty-six birds were brought in baskets from Crow island; on the 9th eleven more came, and on the 10th another lot of thirty-seven. The full number of birds required had now been collected, and it remained to keep them for some time in galvanized wire cages in order to study their ways with a view to ascertain the best mode of treating them in captivity. They were fed principally upon cooked rice and raw meat, with occasional insect grubs (which they greedily devoured), jakfruit, and biscuits. Perhaps crows as a body are gluttons, but at any rate there are individuals among them who do not care to see their fellows enjoying a meal. Those are apparently the fittest who survive» while their less keen or less hungry companions starve. How- ever this may be, the fact is that during the week following the last arrival chronicled above about twelve crows died of star- vation. As time passed on the importance of a plentiful supply of fresh water became increasingly evident. It was also found that they required a certain amount of exposure to the heat of the sun. Deaths were more frequent in one of the aviaries which was constantly shaded beneath a cadjan roof than in the others. It was proved that crowsare as much dependent upon air, light, and water as human beings. They delight in bathing their whole bodies and then shaking out their feathers to dry in the sun. They may be seen daily bathing in the Colombo lake. All the crows whose blood I examined were infected by micros- copic thread worms or filariz. Occasionally adult nematodes were found in the peritoneal membrane, both male and female. The females were ovoviviparous and contained innumerable young filariz coiled up inside the egg membranes or free. One crow in particular, which died on 26th November, had nematodes in the peritoneum and vast quantities of filariz in the blood. It seemed not improbable (although I could not prove either conclusion), firstly, that the bird had succumbed to the disease called filariasis; and secondly, that the filarie of the blood were the progeny of the viviparous nematode worms of the perito- neum.* * This suggestion may serve to call attention to a matter which is worthy of investigation on the part of those interested in such questions, The life-history of nematoda is complicated in various ways, and no simple assertion or suggestion can approach the truth, although it might point the way. CEYLON CROWS IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 29 At length it began to appear that, far from becoming habituated to their confinement, their continued captivity was re-acting injuriously upon them, and deaths became alarmingly frequent, as many as five birds dying in one day. It became necessary to replenish the stock and to hasten their departure. Three large cages measuring about 5 feet high by 4 feet square, furnished with bars and feeding trough, were constructed. Hach of them was stocked. with twenty-four crows. These were despatched to the wharf on the 27th December, two crows dying on the way. The cages were shipped on board the Austrian Lloyd ss. Austria with the Museum Taxidermist, Mr. H. F. Fernando, in charge. The vessel sailed on the following day, and reached Penang on the 2nd January, 1903, ten more deaths having occurred on the voyage. During the voyage the cages were kept thoroughly cleansed, covered with tarpaulin to protect them from the cold winds, and the crows were fed twice daily with bread, rice, potatoes, raw and cooked beef, entrails of fowls, &e. More than fifty crows reached their destination in good condition. If there isany lesson to be learnt from the experiences recorded in the preceding lines, it is this, that the crows will survive a certain duration of captivity, but not an unlimited period, and the transportation from one place to another should be carried out without unnecessary delay. The news of the arrival of the crows in the Malay Peninsula was greeted with an extraordinary outburst of objurgation on the part of the Straits Press. The undeniable impudence of crows has given them, so it appears, a bad name among the European residents of these parts. Personally, I do not think that the prejudice against them is well founded. It is said that they will steal jewellery, but jewellery disappears in ways other than down the gullets of crows, and one act of rapine is likely to be magnified a hundred-fold by common rumour. A. D. Neubronner, Esq., Perak Government Agent, Penang, to the Director, Colombo Museum. January 3, 1903. Sir,—I HAVE the honour to acknowledge receipt of three cages crows, of twenty in each cage, brought by Mr. H. F. Fernando, and Iam glad to say the birds arrived in very good condition judging from their appearance. Mr. Fernando must have doubtless taken 30 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. great care of them on the voyage. I have shipped them per steamer proceeding to Klang or Selangor, where the Resident- General and Mr. Carey are. I have, &c., A. D. NEUBRONNER. K. V. Carey, Esq., Chairman, United Planters’ Association, Federated Malay States, to the Resident-General, Federated Malay States. Klang, Selangor, Federated Malay States, January 28, 1903. Ceylon Crows, Sir,—IN continuation of my letter of the 5th instant* I have the honour to report as follows :— 1. There have been no more fatalities amongst the crows. The whole batch of 56 have now been set free, and so far show no inclination to desert the locality. They were released as recorded below :— Birds On 9th January 80 12 On 12th January vee oe 6 On 16th January ia ous 14 On 17th January ial eee 12 On 27th January ee ae 12 Total. ..3 56 The first lot were let out within four days of their arrival, because several of them looked weakly and as if they were suffering from the confinement. An equal number of healthy crows were at.the same time given their liberty, as I thought that the example of those able to take care of themselves would perhaps be beneficial to their less robust brethren in the way of encouraging them to forage for food, &c. Finding the first birds disinclined to fly away from the place, I gradually let the others out as shown above, keeping a dozen only until yesterday, in order to observe their behaviour in captivity, and see if a prolonged confinement would in any way effect them adversely. I am pleased to say that, far from this being the case, they got fresher every day and their plumage brighter. 2. Food.—From the date of their arrival here the birds always fed well, preferring raw meat to anything, and not being incon- venienced by it being several days old. At one time they had a * This letter has not been included in the correspondence forwarded to me.— A. W. CEYLON CROWS IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 31 plentiful supply of elephant meat, which kept them going for the best part of a week. They also ate bananas and boiled rice, though not with the same avidity, and were always specially fond of ‘bathing in the pans of water which I had placed in their cages. When first they were introduced to the caterpillars of the bee hawk moth they regarded them with some suspicion, and only ate one or two. In a very few days’ time, however, they devoured every caterpillar, chrysalid, and moth that they could get hold of. Many thousands of these insects have been given to them daily, and there have never been any left over. There can be no doubt whatever, therefore, that a caterpillar diet is quite acceptable to them, directly they get used to it. Since their release they have flown away to the coffee, and have evidently been looking for food there, but I have not been able to see them actually catch the bee hawk moth caterpillars though they very assiduously clean the plantain trees of the caterpillars which roll themselves up in the leaves of this plant. It seems to me that the utility of the crows as enemies to the coffee caterpillar will depend largely upon the numbers of the birds in the place, and the consequent scarcity of the food to which they have been accustomed in Ceylon, that is to say, the refuse in the vicinity of human dwellings. It is only natural that they should prefer such food, especially as it is more easily procured. It was only when the caterpillars appeared in very large numbers that the crows in Ceylon were attracted to them, and so it will be here, in all probability. But there is always the factor with our importations, that they will have got to recognize the coffee cater- pillars and chrysalids as palatable articles of diet before they get their freedom. It has been suggested that the crows should be let loose amongst coffee trees that are badly attacked by caterpillars and which have been previously covered over with netting to prevent the birds from flying away. I should have given this a trial, as no harm could result from letting the birds understand where the caterpillars are to be found, but the present consign- ment is such a small one that it seemed better to leave them all together, and not separate them, as Ishould have been obliged to, for there are no coffee trees close by just now on which the cater- pillars are to be found inany numbers. So I decided to leave this part of the experiment to a future occasion, when we get ina fresh batch. 3. Breeding.—I am satisfied that as soon as the crows decide on a suitable spot they will begin to breed. They are often to be seen flying about in pairs already, though I have observed no actual attempt to commence building their nests. Whilst the last F 25-03 32 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. batch were still in their cages, it was evident that the question of mating had not been consigned to oblivion. There were at least two pairs whose attitude towards each other was distinctly suggestive of something more than ordinary friendship, and I also noticed that one of the caged birds had an obvious preference for one of those that had secured its liberty, calling regularly to the outside crow, which always kept in the vicinity of the cage. 4. It may be of interest to record that upon the arrival of the Ceylon crows some dozen or more of the ordinary carrion crow of this country appeared on the scene and seemed to regard the newcomers with considerable interest, but never made any attempt to molest them in any way. Indeed, as far as I can see, the Ceylon crows have nothing to fear from any natural enemies in this country. I have seen kites and eagles flying round since they have been here, but on no occasion have they attacked the crows. I havea large number of young ducks and chickens where the crows have been let loose, but they have not been disturbed by their new neighbours at all, and I do not think that the crows will do any mischief of this sort, as some people seem to anticipate. I may mention, however, that the young ducks proved too much of a temptation to the big carrion crows, which killed and carried off several every day, until I was obliged at last to shoot‘two of them. They were only wounded, and I was able to keep them in one of the empty cages for some days, when one of them, having evidently sustained internal injuries, died. The other, however is still alive, and it has been very interesting having the two species side by side for comparison. The carrion crow readily eats the largest cocoanut beetles and their larve, his powerful bill enabling him to split up and devour the former with the greatest ease, The Ceylon crows will also eat the larve greedily, but cannot manage the beetle unless it is killed and broken up for them first. General.—I venture to think that the experiment, as far as it has — gone, has been an unqualified success. It has been demonstrated that the crows will thrive in captivity ; that they can stand with- out any serious ill-effects the long journey over to this country ; that when released they do not at once fly away, but show every sign of an intention to adapt themselves to their altered circum- stances; and that, when given to them, they readily eat the caterpillars, the destruction of which was the reason for their importation. It now remains to be seen if they will breed, and should they do so I do not see what more can be expected of them, for, as I have said, it is scarcely likely, while so few in numbers, CEYLON CROWS IN THE MALAY PENINSULA. 33 that they will hunt the coffee for caterpillars when there is so much food of other sorts available. The remedy for this is to import several thousands of the birds, and I shall sincerely hope to see this done. I have, &e., EK. V. CAREY, Chairman, United Planters’ Association, Federated Malay States. The Resident-General, Federated Malay States, to the Hon. the Colonial Secretary, Ceylon. Resident-General’s Office, Selangor, Malay Peninsula, February 13, 1903. SiR,—WITH reference to your letter of the 24th December last advising the shipment of a consignment of crows for Selangor, I am directed to inquire whether you would be good enough to make arrangements for furnishing a further supply of fifty birds, at the expense of this Government, addressed as before to care of A. D. Neubronner, Esq., in Penang, to be forwarded to Mr. Carey at Klang, telegraphing to Mr. Neubronner the name of the steamer and date of despatch. 2. Mr. Carey, who has had charge of the first batch, thinks that the experiment, so far as it has gone, has been an unqualified success, but is of opinion that experiments should be made with a further consignment before the crows are imported in large numbers. I have, &c., OLIVER MARKS, Acting Secretary to Resident-General, Federated Malay States. 34 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. GORDIANS OF CEYLON.” By Prof. LORENZO CAMERANO. (University of Turin.) ‘HE Director of the Colombo Museum has sent me for study some Gordian worms from Ceylon. These specimens are interesting, because nothing was known with precision concerning the Gordians of this locality. Oerley, in his work entitled “ On Hair-worms in the Collection of the British Museum” (Ann. Nat. Hist., Series 5, Vol. IIT., 1881) mentions a female example from Ceylon, referring it without comment to the species Gordius tricuspidatus of L. Dufour. Since the researches made by various authors and by mef concerning those species in which the females have the posterior extremity of the body divided into three post-cloacal lobes (Gen. Paragordius, Camer.), it has become necessary to re-examine Oerley’s specimen in order to ascertain to which species of Para- gordius it may belong. Baird, in his ‘‘ Catalogue of the Species of Entozoa contained in the Collection of the British Museum” (London, 1853, and P. Zool. Soe., 1853, p. 20), describes a Gordius verrucosus, giving as locali- ties South Africa and Ceylon. In my Monograph of the Gordians, referred to above, I have, on page 416, pointed out that Baird’s species cannot be identified by reason of the inadequacy of the description and figure given by the author. Recently, by the courtesy of Prof. A. Skorikow, | have examined the rich material of Gordiide in the possession of the Zoological Museum of the Imperial Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. In this material I have found a female worm from Ceylon belonging to the genus Chordodes. * Translated from Prof. Camerano’s report entitled “Gordii di Ceylan” in Boll. Mus. Torino, Vol. XVIII., No, 438, March 9, 1903. The Gordiide are very long threadworms (Nemathelminthes) with smooth round body covered by a glistening cuticle in which no structure is discernible, without close examination. They are semi-aquatic and semi-parasitic, being found during certain phases of their life-history in water and moist earth and at other periods parasitic in the body of aquatic larve and carnivorous insects. +L. Camerano, Monografia dei Gordii, Mem, Ac. Torino, Ser. 2, Vol. XLVII, 1397. GORDIANS OF CEYLON. 35 The specimen is incomplete, since it lacks the posterior part of the body; but from the examination of the structure of the external layer of the cuticle, it seemed to me to belong to an undescribed species. As such I have described it under the name Chordodes Skorikowi. The description, now in the Press, is included in the report relating to the above-mentioned collection, to be published in the “Annuaire du Musée Zoologique de lV Académie Impériale des Sciences de St. Pétersbourg.” The specimens which I have received from Dr. Willey belong to this same species, and as they are uninjured I am able to fill up the gaps which were inevitable in the original description. 1. Female. [Collected by J. H. Leak, Esq., C.C.S., Kurunegala. ] Total length 355 mm. [rather more than 14 inches]. Maximum width 2 mm. ; 2. Female from Kandy, taken in the act of issuing from the body of a species of Mantis. Collected by E. E. Green, May, 1902. Total length 340 mm. Maximum width 2 mm. The colour [in spirit] is pale brown, whitish at the extremities of the body. The form is that which is characteristic of the females of Chordodes. The outer cuticular layer presents :— (1) Mulberry-shaped areole with not very prominent. tuber- cular protuberances, of pale yellowish-brown colour. (2) Papillary areole like the preceding, sometimes rather larger, more pronounced and darker, scattered here and there, frequently united in couples. (3) Papillary areole like the preceding, which are produced at the apex into a delicate refringent process, slightly recurved. (4) Papillary areolz like those of the second category, disposed in groups of seven, eight, or ten around two larger papille, crowned at the summit with transparent hairs. Those placed along the median ventral line show tufts of long transparent processes. (5) Here and there, more especially on each side of the median ventral line, are to be noticed spiniform transparent processes, of roughly conical shape, not curved at the apex. 36 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. NOTES ON THE HABITS OF THE GREEN WHIP-SNAKE (Dryophis mycterizans, Daud.) IN CAPTIVITY. By E. ERNEST GREEN, F.E.S., Government. Entomologist, Ceylon. OULENGER (Faun. Brit. Ind. “ Reptilia and Batrachia,” p. 369) records Dryophis fronticinctus and D. prasinus as being ovoviviparous, but no mention is made of the breeding habit of the other Indian species. I find that D. mycterizans is also ovoviviparous. One of these snakes gave birth to five living young in my vivarium on the 16th and 17th of April. The fifth was hampered by the egg-membrane and died two days later. The newly-born snakes measured 350 mm. from snout to tip of tail, and were of a pale olive green colour above, whitish’below. They at first kept together, in an apparently tangled mass, amongst the branches of the plant. On the eighth day they all shed a skin and appeared in brighter tints, and were more independent in their movements. I am not sure whether they have taken any food or not. I have supplied them with young grasshoppers and other small insects, but have never observed them to take any interest in these insects. Boulenger mentions insects as the food of D. prasinus in early age. The parent is quite tame, and allows itself to be handled freely without objection. It feeds readily upon young lizards of the genus Calotes and upon Geckonide. Its manner of capturing its prey is invariable. When a lizard is introduced into the cage the snake slowly frees the forepart of its body and coils itself in a zigzag fashion. Then, suddenly darting forward, it seizes the victim unerringly just behind the head, drags it from its support, and keeps it dangling without shifting its hold, but gradually tightening its grip, until the lizard is suffocated. This process may take perhaps 20 minutes in the case of a Calotes. The snake never commences to swallow its prey until all signs of life have ceased. This Dryophis has moulted some four or five times during the six months that it has been in captivity. Sometimes the ecdysis has been more or less fragmentary. The skin of the head and neck NOTES ON THE HABITS OF THE GREEN WHIP-SNAKE. 37 is first shed in a single piece, The remainder comes away in small fragments during the next few weeks. Patches of the earlier skin may even remain until the next moulting period. This failure to completely to divest itself is probably due to the unnatural conditions of captivity. The Tamil name for the Dryophis is ‘“ kannu-kuttu pambu” (literally, the “ eye-stabbing snake’’), and the natives believe that it strikes at the eyes of persons or cattle.* It is curious that this same myth recurs with regard to the American whip-snakes. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his novel “ Elsie Venner,” speaking of American snakes, writes :—“ ‘here is something frightful in the disposition of certain ophidians, as the whip-snake, which darts at the eyes of cattle without any apparent provocation or other motive.” Ido not know whether the American whip-snakes are allied to the Indian forms or not. Boulenger states that the genus Dryophis is confined to the East Indies. As regards Dryophis, I think that the native name must have been suggested, partly by the lance-like form of the head, and partly by its habit of coilingitself and facing any intruder upon its privacy—apparently following every movement of his eyes. When pressed, it will strike out blindly, often in the direction of the face of its opponent ; but seemingly more with the object of scaring than of attacking its assailant, Fig, 14.—Head of Dryophis mycterizans in side view, showing the horizontal pupil of the eye and the rostral lobe. Natural size. (* The Sinhalese name for this snake is ehetulla or esgulla (ehe, plural es=eye). The belief that it deliberately strikes at the eye is also common in India, and a curious confirmation has been published by Mr. Frank Finn. (Note on the Long- snouted Whip-snake, Dryophis mycterizans, by F. Finn, B.A., F.Z.S., Deputy Superintendent, Indian Museum. J. Asiat. Soc., Bengal, vol. LXVII., 1898, pp. 66 and 67). ; Mr. Finn tells us that he was holding a couple of these snakes in his hands, knowing them to be harmless, when the larger specimen suddenly darted at his eye inflicting a bite, which resulted in some small punctures on the eyelids, two on the upper and one on the lower eyelid. On rubbing his eye a few hours later Mr. Finn removed a tooth about 1/20 inch long from the puncture in the lower eyelid.—Ed. | 35 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA,. NOTES AND REVIEWS. 1. Crystalline Rocks of Ceylon.—Mr. A. K. Coomaraswamy, the newly appointed Government Mineralogist, has published an important series of papers relating to the Geology of Ceylon, more especially concerning the crystalline limestones and gneisses. One of the general conclusions to which the author’s researches have led him is this, that the crystalline limestones which are found associated with the gneisses are probably of igneous origin, not sedimentary. The following is a list of the papers referred to :— (1) Origin of the Crystalline Limestones of Ceylon. Geol. Mag. Decade IV., Vol. IX., No. 458, p. 375. August, 1902. (2) The Crystalline Limestones of Ceylon. Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc., Vol. LVIII., 1902, pp. 399-422, pls. XIII. and XIV. (3) The Point de Galle Group (Ceylon): Wollastonite-Scapo- lite Gneisses. Jbid., pp. 680-689, pl. XXXIV., Map. (4) Serendibite, a new Borosilicate from Ceylon, by G. T. Prior and A. K. Coomaraswamy. Mineralogical Magazine, Vol. XIII., No. 61, pp. 224-227, 1903. 2. Zoological Gardens.—In view of the rumours which have been circulating during the past twelve months or so regarding the establishment of Zoological Gardens in Colombo, it is interest- ing to read the “Report for the Year 1902” (Fourth Annual Report), by Captain Stanley S. Flower, Director of the Zoological Gardens at Giza, near Cairo, published by the Government of Egypt Public Works Department, Cairo, 1903. During the five years 1898-1902 these Gardens have made extraordinary advances in the number of animals kept in captivity and in the erection of houses, paddocks, and cages to receive them. The total number of animals (Mammals, Birds, Reptiles, and Batrachians) alive in the Gardens on 6th October, 1898, was 270; on the same date in 1902 the number was 923. The animals which are maintained in the Gardens are chiefly Central African species, including several examples of one of the NOTES AND REVIEWS. 39 most peculiarand rare of the Central African birds, the shoebill or whale-headed stork, Balaeniceps rex. “During 1902,” we are told on page 17 of Captain Flower’s Report, “the staff of the Giza Zoological Gardens were entrusted with bringing ninety live animals from the Soudan to Giza, includ- ing specimens for H. H. the Khedive, and certain foreign Zoological Gardens. These animals were :— 10 Lions. 18 Smaller Mammals. 4 Leopards. 5 Secretary Birds. 7 Cheetahs. 3 Shoebills. 4 Giraffes. 17 Storks, Cranes, Geese, &e. 11 Antelopes. | 7 Tortoises. 2 Nuer Cattle. 1 Crocodile. 1 Antbear (Orycteropus | ~ ceethiopicus). | * Out of the ninety animals eighty-eight reached Giza in safety. The only accidents on the journey were the loss of a fine young male roan antelope and a gray crane, which had both been purchased in Khartoum for the Giza Zoological Gardens, and which both died suddenly near Berber on an exceptionally hot day in May.” The total number of deaths during 1902 was 196. There would appear to be no definite reason why the grounds near the Colombo Museum should not be utilized for the exhibi- tion of the wild animals of Ceylon. The only mammals living at the Museum at present are a Hog-deer, purchased at the beginning of the year; a young Sambur doe, presented by the Hon. C. A. Murray in May; four Lemurs, including a female carrying its young (since dead), purchased in May; and finally a young por- cupine. 3. Marine Biological Laboratory at Galle-—\t may be hoped that the small though effective laboratory at Galle, which has served Mr. James Hornell for the last twelve months as a base for his researches into the life-history of the pearl oyster and the nature of pearls, will survive the close of this year’s fishery and form the nucleus of a permanent biological station in the Island. Marine biological stations or observatories are dotted all over the world, for example, in Italy, France, England, Scotland, Norway, United States, and Japan. The prototype of all is the Stazione Zoologica at Naples, the creation of Dr. Anton Dohrn. The success of all these stations depends at least as much on individual enthu- siasm as on Government support, G | 25-03 40 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. The circumstances which led Professor Herdman and Mr. Hornell to fix upon Galle as the site for a Biological Station are described by Professor Herdman in his Preliminary Report on the Pearl Fisheries of Ceylon addressed to His Excellency the Lieu- tenant-Governor on lst July, 1902. “ Galle,” writes Professor Herdman, “‘ seemed to us, after a careful investigation lasting over five days, to be without doubt the most suitable point on the coast of Ceylon for the establishment of a Marine Laboratory and the prosecution of observations and experi- ments on living oysters. Galle has a fringing coral reef round its western shore, inside which is in places a shallow lagoon with a hard bottom, formed partly of living animals and partly of dead coral fragments, making a deposit very like that on some of the ‘Paars’ at Mannar. At the opposite or south-eastern part of the bay, inside Watering Point, there is also some hard ground formed in part of coral, and at this spot we actually found the pearl oyster living.” The “ Sixteenth Annual Report of the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee,” edited by Professor Herdman (Liverpool, 1902,70 pp.), contains an illustrated account of the new Biological Station at Port Erin, Isle of Man. The Liverpool Marine Biology Com- mittee isa Committee consisting of local naturalists from Liverpool and neighbouring towns; it was formed in 1885 at a meeting summoned for the purpose by Professor Herdman. In 1887 a small biological station was set up on Puffin Island off the north coast of Anglesey. This was transferred in 1892 to Port Erin Bay on the southern coast of the Isle of Man. At this place a three-roomed Biological Station was built and formally opened for work by Sir Spencer Walpole, the Governor of the Island. In 1893 an Aquarium was added to the establishment, and later on sea-fish hatching was undertaken. In 1898 an alliance was formed between a Committee appointed by the Manx Govern- ment and the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee, with the result that three years later a much larger building representing a combined Biological Station, Aquarium, and Fish Hatchery was erected. Of the three Departments, the Laboratory block is con- trolled by the Liverpool Marine Biology Committee, the Hatchery block by the Manx Committee, and the Aquarium in the centre is managed as a joint concern. With regard to Ceylon it may be added that Professor Herdman has, in a private letter, called attention to the advantages likely to result from co-operation between the Colombo Museum and the Galle Laboratory in the event of the latter being made permanent, NOTES AND REVIEWS. 4] 4. The Tea Tortrix.—The third number of the second volume of the “ Circulars and Agricultural Journal of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Ceylon,” issued in January, 1903 (pp. 33-45), contains a full account of this tea pest by Mr. E. E. Green, Government Entomologist. It was originally described by Nietner in 1861 as an enemy of the coffee plant. Nietner named it Capua coffearia. Instructions are given for fighting this disease of the tea in all its stages of egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, and moth. The eggs are deposited on the upper side of the mature tea leaves in compact masses of about 250. The eggs are disc-shaped objects, pale yellow, “‘ overlapping each other like the scales of a fish, the whole mass coated with a varnish-like film.” Mr. Green’s article is especially noteworthy on account of the admirable lithographic plate which illustrates it. The drawings show all the points referred to in the text; they were executed upon the stone by Mr. Green himself and printed at the Surveyor- General’s Office. 5. Mosquitoes in Ceylon.—Among the collateral achievements resulting from the brilliant discoveries of Ross and Grassi, which have established the truth of the Mosquito Theory of Malaria, the Monograph of the Culicide or Mosquitoes of the British Museum by Mr. F. V. Theobald (London, 1901) occupies a prominent position. This work consists of two volumes of text and one volume of coloured plates. In consideration of its size and importance it was produced in a remarkably short space of time. The twenty-fifth Circular of the first series of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Ceylon, issued in December: 1901 (pp. 346-368), ‘and entitled Mosquitoes and Malaria, by Mr. EK. E. Green, concludes with a list of twenty species said to occur in Ceylon. Many of these were specially identified by Mr. Theobald during the pre- paration of his Monograph. Others, however, such as Stegomyia pseudoteniata and Armigeres ventralis (=A. obturbans) are not recorded from Ceylon in Mr. Theobald’s pages. There is thus still room for a revision of the Culicidz of Ceylon.* The dominant genera of Culicide are Culex with upwards of 125 species scattered over the world, and Anopheles with 44 species. Certain species of Anopheles are the intermediate hosts * The classification of the Indian species of Anopheles has recently formed the subject of a joint memoir by Drs. J. W. W. Stephens and 8. R. Christophers in the seventh series of ‘“‘ Reports to the Malaria Committee of the Royal Society ” (London, 1902), illustrated by four plates. This series also contains articles by the same authors on the relation of species of Anopheles to Malarial Endemicity : and a paper by Professor E. Ray Lankester “On a convenient Terminology for the various Stages of the Malaria Parasite.” 42 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. for the malaria parasite and the vehicles by which the germ is carried from one human subject to another. Mr. Green, in the article referred to above, tabulates the principal differences between manner -— CULEX. Eggs agglutinated into raft-like masses. Each egg placed vertically. Larva with long breathing tube at [hinder] end of body. ° Floats head downwards. Adult insect [female] with palpi much shorter than proboscis. Wings usually clear and colourless. Rests Culex and Anopheles in the following ANOPHELES. Eggs separate, floating horizon- tally. Larva without prominent breath- ing tube. Floats horizontally. Adult insect with palpi as long as proboscis. Wings usually spotted or clouded, Tilts the body at an angle to the support. with body parallel with support: The accompanying sketches, drawn from life by Mr. Green, and kindly lent by him for reproduction in this Journal, show the characteristic attitudes of Culex (Armigeres) ventralis, Walker Fig. 15), and Anopheles maculata, Theobald (Fig. 16). Fig. 16.—Anopheles maculata, 2. Fig. 15.— Culex ventralis, 2. 6. Mortality of Fishes in the Colombo Lake.-—About the 7th April and the following two or three days the Colombo news- papers announced the appearance of large numbers of dead fish of all sizes, up to as much as 2 feet in length, on the banks of the Colombo lake and floating on the surface. Various explanations were suggested to account for this unusual mortality, the most plausible being that which connected it with the sudden change in the weather and the torrential rains which fell about that time.* Mr. F. D. Jayasinba, Clerk of the Royal Asiatic Society and Inspector of Watchers in the Museum, states that when on a visit to the village of Akurala in Madampe at Easter he ascertained that. a similar phenomenon had been observed on 10th April in the canal which crosses the village. He was told that the fish were seen floating oa the surface of the water in an intoxicated state and were collected Ly the villagers in hand nets. On questioning them as to the cause ot this, Mr. Jayasinha was informed that it was * 1:77 inch in Colombo on April 6th. NOTES AND REVIEWS. AS nothing new, but had been experienced on many previous occasions, that, in fact, it always happens so in stagnant lagoons, canals, and pools when rain falls in abundance after long seasons of drought. Mr. Jayasinha thinks that this explanation is probably correct, because the fishes in the Madampe-oya, which enters the sea at Ambalangoda, have not suffered any such calamity. The canal referred to above cuts across Madampe, approaching the sea at Akurala at the 56th milepost on the road to Galle. The canal is not always flowing, as the mouth becomes blocked by sandbanks and the water is therefore stagnant until the mouth is cleared by the villagers to let out the water after heavy rainfall. The canal was cut by Government for the purpose of draining the neighbour- ing country during floods. It abounds in fishes of various sorts. It is of course well known that many fishes are highly susceptible to sudden changes both of temperature and salinity, and the access of a large body of rain water would affect both, but especially the salinity, and might very well exert a toxic action upon the inhabi- tants which had become accustomed to the special conditions of stagnant water. The incident reminds one of an analogous event which happened off the coast of New England, United States of America, in the year 1882. The following extracts from an article by Mr. F. A. Lucas,* published in the Report of the National Museum, 1889, may serve indirectly to throw light upon a matter which has mystified the Municipal authorities of Colombo :— In the months of March and April, 1882, vessels arriving at Philadelphia, New York, and Boston reported having passed large numbers of dead or dying fish scattered over an area of many miles, and from descriptions and the occasional specimens brought in it was evident that the great majority of these were tile fish (Lopholatilus chameleonticeps, Goode and Bean). ene As one account after another came in it became apparent that a vast destruction of fish had taken place, for vessels reported having sailed for 40, 50, and 60 miles through floating fish............ As there were no signs of any disease, and no parasites found on the fish brought in for examination, their death could not have been brought about by either of these causes......... Professor Verrill has noted the occurrence of a strip of water, having a temperature of 48° to 50° Fahr., lying on the border of the Gulf Stream slope, sandwiched in between the Arctic current on the one hand and the cold depths of the sea on the other. During 1880 and 1881 Professor Verrill dredged along the Gulf Stream slope, obtaining in this warm belt, as he terms it, many species of invertebrates characteristic of more southern localities. In 1882 the same species were scarce or totally absent from places where they * Lucas. F. A., “Animals recently extinct or threatened with extermination. as represented in the collections of the United States National Museum,” Rep. Nat. Mus. (Smithsonian Reports), 1889, see p. 647. 44 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. had previously been abundant, and this, taken in connection with the occur- rence of heavy northerly gales and the presence of much inshore ice at the north, leaves little doubt that some unusual lowering of temperature in the warm belt brought immediate death to many of its inhabitants. From analogy and from the known facts of the case it therefore seems possible that the fishes of the Colombo lake met their death in consequence of the recent sudden alteration of meteorological conditions. Unfortunately no specimens found their way to the Museum, so that it is impossible to say what families, genera, or species were most affected. This is the more to be regretted, because the identification of the fishes would have rendered it possible to put forward a more definite explanation of the occurrence, and at the same time would have afforded useful information for fishery purposes. In this connection it may be pointed out that one of the chief objects of this journal is to preserve exact and authoritative records of vital phenomena for future guidance and reference. = . 7 = wer wa et ec . Se ™ I - ian = . m4 . . 7’ > e fi ‘ = i Ae he & 2 é * ie ' - te > J ’ - ‘ % . . - ‘ . ' \s = . > ‘ £ : , ; i * ee } \ + ‘ s a ‘ { E ) 4 " . ‘ ' “a . = b A ‘ é 7 , ¢ \ . ' ~ ~ i I 4 ' Stns) * ; ai Lees Pr wy << ae ere ee - : » —- AgT, be a ia a oath aa sa as iaaing daa a: = ’ » * i re erry ' 7 4 - 5, ’ PS — Vol.L.PLI. 8 2 = ie > a g fo} a. a E Wilson,Cambridge ENTOZOA- SHIPLEY SOME PARASITES FROM CEYLON. 45 SOME PARASITES FROM CEYLON. By ARTHUR E. SHIPLEY, M.A., Fellow and Tutor of Christ’s College, Cambridge, and Unwersity Lecturer on the Advanced Morphology of the. Invertebrata. With Plate I. “Nature is, of course, wonderful in all her works—in some even admirable —whilst there are others, such as the hippopotamus and the tapeworm, in which she can hardly be said to have attained more than a swcecés d’estime.” H. R. T., Camb. Rev., 1902, p. 216. HE following is an account of a small collection of Entozoa composed of specimens in the Museum at Colombo, and of some others quite recently taken in different parts of Ceylon. The collection is a very varied one, and, with the exception of the Gordian worms, all the large groups which lead a primarily entozoic life are represented. Protozoa in the form of Sporozoa, Trematoda, Cestoda, Nematoda, Acanthocephala, Linguatulida, all are there. I owe many words of gratitude to Dr. Von Linstow, Professor A. Railliet, and Professor O. Fuhrmann, who have helped me in certain provinces which they have made peculiarly their own. Indeed their patient responses to my much importunity have led me to the conviction that parasitologists are amongst the most good-natured and helpful of men. To my friend Dr. A. Willey, Director of the Colombo Museum, I am indebted for the oppor- tunity of describing the collection. PROTOZOA. Class: SPOROZOA. Order : SARCOSPORIDIA, Balbiani. SAROCOCYSTIS TENELLA, Railliet. Pl. I., figs. 10 and 17. Four specimens of a dirty gray colour outwardly, somewhat resembling proglottides of Cestoda, arrived with the collection from Ceylon. These were labelled “Found in piece of beef killed forfood. Can migrate and go out of sight into the muscle.”* * These specimens were collected and presented to the Museum by G. W. Sturgess. Esq., M.R,C.V.S., Colonial Veterinary Surgeon, q 25-03 & 46 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. I was quite unable to identify these organisms, never having seen anything like them, but Professor Railliet of Alfort, to whom I sent them, recognized them at once as specimens of Sarcocystis, one of the order Sarcosporidia, which Braun* places as the sixth and last order of the class Sporozoa, whilst Wasiliewskif places it as an appendix to the class. The organisms were somewhat pointed, though not very sharply, at either end. One or two ends were truncated. The largest of them measured 30 mm. in length, 5 mm. in breadth, and 3 mm. in thickness, the thickest part being in the middle line. _ In transverse section the animal is seen to consist of a number of polyhedral chambers with granular contents. The peripheral chambers were completely full, stained deeply, and showed a very fine granulation, like that of protoplasm. The central chamb@rs were in some cases empty or almostempty. The others contained small corpuscles, which I take to be spores, but the state of preser- vation did not permit of certainty on this point. The outer coating consists of two sheaths, an outer one which is a continuous coating, and an inner one directly continuous with the partitions which divide one chamber from the next. Close under the coating in some places can be seen a few smaller chambers, but these may be simply the narrow ends of some of the others. The partitions between the chambers look like connective tissue. I am inclined to consider that this species is Sarcocystis tenella, Railliet. It is just sixty years since Von Mieschert first described certain white cylindrical bodies lying in the voluntary muscles of the house-mouse, and since that date numerous other observers have described similar bodies lying in the muscles, and more rarely in the connective tissue, of mammals, birds, and reptiles. Nothing is definitely known as to the means by which the various hosts—many of which are confined to a vegetable diet—become infected. ‘he parasite seems to first appear as a cell-parasite within a muscle-cell, which retains its striation and seems but slightly affected. The nucleus of the Sarcocystis then undergoes division, and we find later a poly-nucleated organism which gradually breaks up into a corresponding number of chambers. The nuclei and protoplasm of these chambers then break up into an enormous number of minute spores, often sickle-shaped, some of which have been described as having two flagella at one end or one flagellum at eachend. The fate of these spores or sporozoites is varied, and not very definitely known. Some undoubtedly fail to * “Die thierischen Parasiten des Menschen.” Wiirzburg, 1903. } “Sporozoenkunde,” Jena, 1896. } Verh. Ges. Basel. v., 1843, p. 198. SOME PARASITES FROM CEYLON. 47 develop further, because the whole animal—as so often happens in the case of T'richina spiralis—becomes calcified. Some obser- vers think that under happier circumstances the sickle-shaped spores become amceboid and wandering into neighbouring muscle- cells re-start the infection, but the matter is not clear, and a still greater mystery surrounds the first entrance of the parasite into its host. TREMATODA. Family : PARAMPHISTOMID®, Fischoeder. PARAMPHISTOMUM BATHYCOTYLE, Fischoeder. Pl, L., figs. 14, 14a, and 140. In his recent revision* of the Amphistomide Montic.—a family name he replaces by Paramphistomide—Fischoeder de- scribes amongst the genus Paramphistomum (= Amphistoma, Rud.) a new species P. bathycotyle found in a Bos kerabau brought from Ceylon to the Zoological Gardens at KéGnigsberg. Dr. Willey has sent me a considerable collection of parasites which belong to the same species. These were taken from the stomach of Cervus axis, the spotted deer, shot at Weligatta.T I have figured the outlines of several specimens, from which it will be seen that the various diameters of the body vary considerably. CESTODA. Family : BOTHRIOCEPHALIDA. Sub-Family : DIBOTHRIOCEPHALINZA. DUTHIERSIA FIMBRIATA, Dies., 1854. Pl. L., figs. 1 to 3. Synonyms: Bothridium du Varan du Nil. Gaz. méd. Paris, 20e Année (3) V., 1849, p. 119. Solenophorus fimbriatus, Diesing, S.B. Ak. Wien. XIII., 1854, p. 596. Duthiersia expansa, K. Perrier, Arch. Zool. exp. II., 1873, p. 359. Duthiersia elegans, E. Perrier, ibid., p. 360. Duthiersia fimbriata, Diesing. Monticelli and Crety, Mem. Aee: Torino. Ser. 2. XLI., 1891. Duthiersia fimbriata, Dies. Liithe, Verh. Deutsch. Zool. Ges., 1899. The genus of tapeworm was carefully described by Edmond Perriert in 1873. His specimens came from a “ Varan a deux * Zool. Anz. XXIV., 1901, p. 367, Die Paramphistomiden der Saiugethiere Inaug. Diss. Konigsberg, 1902, and Zool. Jahrb. Syst. XVII., 1903, p. 485. + The same parasites occur in the country goat and in the sambur. t Arch. Zool. exp. IL., 1873. p. 349. 48 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. bandes ” living in the Moluccas and from a “ Varan du Nil” from Senegal, and he distinguished two species Duthiersia expansa from the first-named host and Duthiersia elegans from the other. Later writers however recognize but one species. Some of the specimens sent me by Dr. Willey were taken from the duodenum and intestine of Varanus salvator taken at Horana, others from the duodenum of V. bengalensis taken at Bolgoda. In the article by Monticelli and Crety quoted above, the authors place this genus with Solenophorus ina sub-family Solenophorine ; on the other hand Liihe (and Braun in his Cestodes* follows Liihe) places Duthiersia with Dibothriocephalus, Scyphocephalus, Bothridium, Diplogonoporus, and Pyramicocephalus, in the sub- family Dibothriocephaline of the family Bothriocephalide. Liihe remarks: ‘Die bisher angenommene feine hintere Oeffnung der angeblich trichterf6rmige Saugorgane istan den von mir untersuchten Exemplaren des Berliner Museum nicht vor- handen, sie muss daher an der Pariser Exemplaren ein durch die Sonde hervorgerufenes Kunstprodukt sein. Die von Crety und Monticelli gebildete Unterfamilie Solenophorina (sic) verliert durch diesen Nachweis ihre Existenzberechtigung.” I have made two series of sections through the heads of two specimens of D. fimbriata,—all I could sacrifice to the knife,—and each of these series of sections, one of which was cut in the longitudinal vertical and the other in the longitudinal horizontal plane, shows the pore originally described by E. Perrier, opening posteriorly from each bothrium on to the outside. The pore is truly very small, and if the section be in the plane of the narrow tube it scarcely occupies more than one section, but if it be cut obliquely it extends into three or four sections. It is much smaller in the Ceylon specimens than one would have expected from Perrier’s illustrations, but it is most certainly there. The walls of the bothria are well supplied with large water-vascular trunks, which, when full, may give a certain tensity and rigidity to the organ. The nerve supply is also conspicuous, BOTHRIDIUM PYTHONIS, Blainv.t Pl. 1., figs. 11 to 13 and figs. 15 and 16. Synonyms: Prodicelia ditrema, Lebl. Atlas to the work mentioned in the note f at the foot of the page. Bothridium laticeps, Duvern. Ann. Sci., nat. XXX., 1833. * Bronn’s “ Thier-reich,” 1900, p. 1689. } Bremser “Traité zoologique et physiologique sur les vers intestinaux de l'homme” trad. par Grundler ; revu et augmenté des notes par M. de Blainville. Paris, 1824. SOME PARASITES FROM CEYLON. 49 Solenophorus megalocephalus and S. grandis, Creplin, Ersch and Gruber’s Ency. d. Wiss.u. Kunst. Leipzig, 1839. See also Rohoz, Zeitschr. wiss. Zool. XX XVILI., 1882; Griesbach, Arch. mikr. Anat. XXII., 1883 ; Crety Atti. Acc. Lincei. Ser. 4, VI., 1890 ; Monticelli and Crety, Mem. Acc. Torino. Ser. 2, XLI., 1891 ; and Cohn, Zool. Jahrb. Anat. XII., 1896. Bothridium pythonis, Blainv. Bronn’s Thier-reich, Cestodes, 1894-1900 ; and Liihe, Verh. Deutsch. Zool. Ges., 1899. Dr. Willey’s specimens were very numerous, many were free, and again many were still attached to a piece of the wall of the duodenum of their host, a Python molurus taken at Weligatta, in the Southern Province of Ceylon. The same snake was also infested by a Nematode, probably Ascaris rubicunda, and by a Pentastoma, Porocephalus moniliformis, both found in the left lung. Family : TA@NIIDA. Sub-Family : TETRABOTHRIINA. TETRABOTHRIUS EROSTRIS, Lonnbg. Synonyms: Bothridiotenia erostris, Loénnbg. Ergebnisse der Hamburger Magalhensischen Sammelreise f., Lief, 1896. Prosthecocotyle erostris, Fuhrmann. Zool. Anz. XXI., 1898, p. 385, and Centrbl. Bakter. I., Abth. XXV., 1899, p. 871. These specimens were removed from a tern or sea swallow, Sterna bergii, shot on the Negombo lake in Angust, 1902. This bird ranges from east and south-west Africa to Japan and Polynesia. Sub-Family : THNIINA. The three species of this sub-family represented in the collection have been described by Dr. Von Linstow,* and the subjoined account is an abstract of his article which I have thought well to add, so as to make this account of the collection of parasites of Ceylon sent to me as complete as possible. TANIA POLYCALCARIA, Von Linstow. Piet, fiers: Length 108 mm., breadth anteriorly 1°5 mm., posteriorly 6°71 mm. The genital pores are irregularly placed on one edge or the other of the proglottides. The single lateral longitudinal vessel runs in the second and fifth sixth of the transverse diameter. The proglottides were all immature, the reproductive organs * Centrbl. Bakter. XXXIII.. 1903, p. 532. 50 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. undeveloped, and only the primordium of the testis and the genital sinus is recognizable. ‘The central portion is separated from the peripheral by a dorsal and ventral broad band of transverse muscles. The calcareous bodies are closely packed and exceptionally numerous. Since the reproductive elements are undeveloped the hooks on the rostellum demand especial attention as specific characters. There are two rows of 19 hooks, measuringin length 0:238 mm. or 0:158 mm. These are straight with the short handle obliquely placed to the main axis; in the large hooks it is about in the middle, in the small hooks a little behind the middle and unsplit. Amongst the cestodes living in allied carnivores the species belonging to the genera Vesocestoides and Dipylidiwm may be left out of account; Tania oligarthra, Diesing, like Tenia echino- coccus v., Sieb, consists of but 3-4 small proglottides. Tania laticollis, Rud., has only one row of hooks. There remain for comparison Tenia novella, Neumann ; Tenia serrata, Goeze ; and Tenia crassicollis, Rudolphi. Tenia novella, Neumann, has two rows of 20-21 hooks, which measure 0°25-0°26 mm. and 0°150-0°155 mm. The handle has its end directed towards the hook-end, and in the smaller hooks the root is much shorter than the hook-end and bent backward. The handle is split. | Tenia serrata, Goeze, hastworows of 17-24 hooks. The large ones measure 0:225-0:250 mm., the smaller 0°120-0°160 mm. The handle arises far in front of the middle in the large forms, but behind the middle in the small forms where it is split. Tenia crassicollis, Rud., has two rows of 13-26 hooks, which measure 0°38-0:42 and 0:25-0:27 mm. respectively. The handle is stout and directed towards the point. It is situated behind the middle in the small hooks. Whilst these hooks are much larger than those of the new species they are much smaller than those of Tenia cenurus, Rud. Habitat : The intestine of Felis pardus. The stomach of this leopard contained monkey’s hair. The host was shot between Wirawila and Tissa, in the Southern Province of Ceylon. TAINIA MAGANDER, Von Linstow. Pill, ess O: bOWds This tapeworm measured 18°2 mm. in length, 0°12 mm. breadth anteriorly and 0°99 mm. posteriorly. The maximum breadth is that of the proglottides a little behind the middle, where they are 1-42 mm.broad and 0:12 mm. long. All the proglottides are very short. The genital pores are on the edge and are unilateral. SOME PARASITES FROM CEYLON. He The scolex is 0°13 mm. broad, the rostellum 0:062 mm. The latter bears about one-third from its anterior end a circlet of 24 hooks, each 0°0091 mm.in length. The suckers are oval with the longer axis longitudinal. They are 0:078 mm. longand 0:047 mm. broad. The cuticle is 0°0025 mm. thick, and beneath it lie two layers of longitudinal muscles, the external layer consisting of bundles of 2-3 fibrils, the internal of bundles of 6-8 fibrils. About twenty testicular follicles can be seen in each transverse section. The cirrus-sac is small and pear-shaped, the receptaculum seminis reaches almost to the middle of the transverse section ; the yolk gland lies about in the centre of the segment, near it lies the small shell gland ; the ovary lies in the central substance and consists of a number of groups of glands which spread out most on the side which does not bear the genital pores; the ova are 0°0J3 mm. in diameter. No calcareous bodies are found. Two longitudinal excretory canals run along each side; one of them is markedly coiled. The eggs are oval, 0°052 mm. long and 0:042 mm. broad. The spherical onchosphere is 0°026 mm. in diameter, its outer capsule is beset with irregular tubercles. Habitat: From the intestine of Schneider’s leaf-nosed bat, Hipposideris speoris, Kalpitiya, Ceylon. ACANTHOTANIA SHIPLEYI, Von Linstow. Pl. I., figs. 8 and 9. Only one specimen, a microscopic preparation, was available, and thus transverse sections could not be prepared. The tape- worm was 13°8 mm. long and anteriorly 0°11 mm. broad, pos- teriorly 0:49 mm. in breadth. The segmentation into proglottides is not shown at all anteriorly, and but slightly shown posteriorly. It is only indicated by the position of the reproductive organs. Posteriorly the proglottides are 0°97 mm. long and 0°49 mm. broad. The genital pores are irregularly placed in the centre of the proglottis edge. The scolex is 0°24 mm. long, behind 0°18 mm. broad. The rostellum is 0°12 mm. long and 0:10 mm. broad. The cuticle of the whole scolex and of the body for a distance of 1:76 mm. is beset with thickly-set fine bristles. In each proglottis there are some fifty testes. The cirrus-sac lies behind the vagina, and is crescentiform with the convexity anterior. The vagina bends back ina sweep towards the middle of the hind margin of the proglottis ; here lie the rounded yolk gland and right and left a lobed ovary. ‘he subcuticular cells are very ~ powerfully developed. The eggs were not yet developed. 52 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. The diagnosis of this new genus is as follows :—The whole scolex and the anterior body-cuticle is beset closely with fine bristles. No hooks occur on the rostellum. Genital pores lateral, irre- gularly alternating. About fifty testes in each proglottis. The proglottis segmentation hardly recognizable externally. Habitat: From the intestine of Varanus (Hydrosaurus) salvator. Taken at Horana, Ceylon. CYSTICERCI. One bottle contained four or five cysticerci, varying in size between a pea and a Lima bean. Before cutting these I had some hope that they would throw some light on the life-history of Bothridium pythonis, since they were taken from the peritoneum of a Cervus axis, a host which falls not unfrequently a prey to Python molurus. Sections, however, showed that we had to do with a Tenia, with four well-developed suckers and a double row of large hooks, twenty in each circle, alternating with one another. Probably this cysticercus is the larval form of Tenia marginata, which lives in the intestine of dogs and wolves. NEMATODA. ASCARIS RUBICUNDA ? Schneider. In the same Python molurus whose duodenum was invested with the Bothridium pythonis, Blainv., and in the same lung that harboured the Porocephalus moniliformis, Diesing, was found anematode. Dr. Von Linstow has been kind enough to examine this specimen, and reports that it is immature and cannot be accurately determined. Probably it belongs to the species mentioned here. ACANTHOCEPHALA. ECHINORHYNCHUS ROTUNDATUS, Von Linstow.* The specimens were numerous, some free, but many with their proboscis sunk in the tissue of a piece of the intestinal wall of the host, the jungle crow, Centropus sinensis. In no specimen which I examined was the proboscis fully extended, always there was an invagination which concealed some of the hooks. This parasite was described five years ago by Von Linstow from a Centropus madagascariensis taken in Madagascar. The Sinhalese specimens came from a bird labelled Centropus rufipennis,t Illiger, a species I have not been able to identify in the British Mussum Catalogue. * Arch. Naturg. 63 Jg., 1897, p. 33. + This is the name given to the Common Coucal or Crow-Pheasant (Aetti- kukkula, Sinh.) in Captain Legye’s monograph, p. 260. For a discussion of the synonyms and varieties of this bird Dr. W. 'T. Blanford’s Vol. III, Birds, Fauna Brit. India, 1895, pp. 239-241, may be consulted. =U Oo SOME PARASITES FROM CEYLON. GIGANTORHYNCHUS GIGAS (Goeze). Five or six specimens of this parasite were taken from the stomach of a Sus cristatus killed at Batulu-oya. Judging from their size they were all males. The position of the parasite in the host is worth remarking. These animals usually come to rest in the small intestine, notably in the duodenum, but the specimens in question were found in the stomach. The secondary host of G. gigas is some species of beetle, most usually in Europe the cockchafer, Melolontha vulgaris, but Cetonia aurata is also ineri- minated. In North America the beetle Lachnosterna arcuata and allied species harbour the younger stages of the Gigan- lorhynchus. LINGUATULIDA. POROCEPHALUS MONILIFORMIS (Diesing).* Synonym : Pentastoma moniliforme, Diesing. Denk. Ak. Wien. Beit 1856, p. dl. A single specimen was taken from the left lung of a Python molurus, which also harboured the immature nematode, Ascaris rubicunda (?) Schn. The duodenum of the same snake was packed with the cestode, Bothridiwm pythonis, Blainv. LIST OF PARASITES FROM CEYLON, WITH THEIR RESPECTIVE HOSTS. PARASITES. HOST, POSITION IN HOST. PROTOZOA. Sarcocystis tenella, Rail- liet ..» Beef ... Amongst muscles. PLATYHELMINTHES. TREMATODA. Paramphistomum bathy- cotyle, Fisch. .. Cervus axis --- Stomach. CESTODA. Cysticercus ? w- Cervus axis ... Peritoneum. Duthiersia fimbriata, Dies. ... Varanus salvator Intestine and duo- and V.bengalen- denum. sis Bothridium pythonis, Blainv. ..- Python molurus... Duodenum. * Shipley, Arch, parasit. I., 1898, p. 72. I 25-03 54 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. PARASITES. ITOST. POSITION IN HOST. Tetrabothrius erostris, Lénnbg. .. Sterna bergii ..- Intestine. Tenia polycalearia v., Lins. ... Felis pardus ... Intestine. Tenia meander v., Lins. Hipposiderisspeoris Intestine. Acanthotenia shipleyi v., Lins. .. Varanus salvator Intestine. NEMATODA. Ascaris rubicunda? Sch- neider .» Python molurus ... Duodenum. - ACANTHOCEPHALA. Echinorhynchus rotunda- tus v., Lins. ... Centropus rufipen- Intestine. nis Gigantorhynchus gigas, Goeze ... Sus cristatus ... Stomach. LINGUATULIDA, Porocephalus moniliformis, Dies. ... Python molurus ... Lung. Zoological Laboratory, Cambridge, May, 1903. SOME PARASITES FROM CEYLON. 5D EXPLANATION OF PLATE Illustrating Mr, A. E. Shipley’s Article on “ Parasites from Ceylon.” Fig. 1.—Duthiersia fimbriata, Dies. x 10. Fig. 2—A longitudinal horizontal section, x about 10, through the head of D. fimbriata, showing on the right side the anterior and the posterior opening into the bothrium. Fig. 3.—The head of D. fimbriata, x 10, viewed en face. Fig. 4.—Large and small hooks from Tenia polycalcaria, Von Lins. Slightly magnified. From Von Linstow. Fig. 5.—Transverse section of 7. meander, Von Lins. Highly magnified. c, cirrus-sac ; e,external bundles of muscles ; 7, inter- nal bundles of muscles; Jv, lateral excretory canals ; n, nerve : 0, ovary; 7, receptaculum seminis: s, shell gland: ¢, testis; v, vagina ; y, yolk gland. From Von Linstow. Fig. 6.—Head of 7. meander, highly magnified. From Von Linstow. Fig. 7.—Hook from 7. meander, highly magnified. From Von Linstow. Fig. 8.—Head of Acanthotenia shipleyi, Von Lins. Showing the bristles. Highly magnified. From Von Linstow. Fig. 9.—Proglottis of Acanthotenia shipleyi, Von Lins. Magni, fied. ¢, cirrus-sac ; d, yolk gland ; #, ovary ; /, testis ; v, vagina. Fig. 10.—Four specimens of Sarcocystis tenella, Raill., x 1. Fig, 11.—A portion of the duodenum of Python molwrus, with specimens of Bothridium pythonis, Blainv., attached, x 12. Fig. 12.—Head of B. pythonis, x 12. Fig. 13.—Head of B. pythonis viewed en face, x 12. Figs. 14, 14a, 14b.—Views of Paramphistomum bathycotyle, Fisch., x 5, showing different sizes and outlines. Fig. 15.—Longitudinal vertical section through the head of B. pythonis, showing the anterior and posterior openings into a bothrium, and the way in which the villi of the snake’s intestine are surrounded by the bothrium, x 24. Fig. 16.—A longitudinal horizontal section through the head of B. pythonis, showing the posterior opening into one of the bothria 16: Fig. 17.—A transverse section of Sarcocystis tenella, Raill., showing the chambers and the granular contents or spores. Highly magnified. 56 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. A SKETCH OF THE CEYLON PEARL FISHERY OF 1903. By EVERARD IM THURN, C.B., C.M.G. T is difficult to imagine a more picturesque incident than the “harvest of the sea,” when pearls are the crop gathered in. The scene is in the shallow tropical sea which is shut in by Ceylon on the east, the coast of Southern India on the west, and on the north by “‘ Adam’s Bridge,” a reef partly just awash and partly cropping up in the form of a chain of islands which connects Ceylon with India. In the Gulf of Mannar thus formed it was found at least some 300 years before Christ that there is an abundant growth of pearl-producing mussels—locally called oysters. The banks or “paars” on which these bivalves grow lie from 5 to 10 fathoms below the surface of the water. Thither for 2,000 years, when the rumour goes abroad that the harvest is ripe, divers have come together from the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf and the coasts of India, as well as from Ceylon itself, to gather in the Orient pearls which have been distributed to adorn stately men and beautiful women in many a function throughout the civilized as well as the barbaric world. The coast lands of Ceylon nearest to the oyster paars is for the most part very sparsely inhabited, and, like the opposite coasts of Southern India, consists chiefly of rolling sand plains, with here and there a little coarse grass or low sparse vegetation or even occasional scrubby jungle. For some mysterious and hitherto unexplained reason this harvest of the sea has always been an uncertain one, apt suddenly, and at any stage in its growth, to disappear; and often it is many years before it re-appears. At most times of the year, and sometimes for years together when the oyster crop is known to have failed, the adjacent shore is a desert in which a human being is rarely to be seen. But nowadays, and throughout the past century, as each November comes round, an official from Colombo visits the paars, takes up a certain number of oysters from each, washes out the pearls, sub- mits these and the facts connected with them to experts, and the Ceylon Government thus decides whether or not there shall be a fishery in the following March and April. PEARL FISHERY OF 1903. BY If the decision is in the affirmative preparations have to begin at once. The fact that there is to be a fishery is made known throughout India and the Eastern world, and even in Kurope. This is done partly by the prosaic system of newspaper advertise- ment, partly by that far more wonderful passing of the word from man to man which, as is now well known, can carry news across a continent with amazing speed. On land which is at the moment a desert an elaborate set of temporary Government buildings have to be erected for receiving and dealing with many millions of oysters and their valuable if minute contents. Court-houses, prisons, barracks, revenue offices, markets, residences for the officials, streets of houses and shops for perhaps some thirty thousand inhabitants, and a water supply for drinking and bathing for these same people have to be arranged for. Lastly but, in view of the dreadful possibility of the outbreak of | plague and cholera, not least, there are elaborate hospitals to be provided. After an interval of eleven years it was announced at the end of 1902 that there would bea fishery in the following spring. The difficulty of making the above-mentioned preparations in due time vas enormously increased by the fact that so long an interval had elapsed since the last fishery, and that so few persons were conver- sant with what had to be done. Mr. Ievers, the Government Agent of the Northern Province, and his immediate assistants Messrs. Horsburgh and Denham were, however, equal to the occasion; and when the time appointed for the commencement of the fishery came, a complete temporary town had sprung as well and minutely ordered as are most permanent towns. A fleet of some 200 large fishing craft had gathered, and with the help of an occasional steamer from Colombo had brought together, chiefly from India but partly from Ceylon, a popu- lation which during the course of the fishery varied from about 25,000 to perhaps 35,000 or 40,000 souls—men, women, and children. It was my great good luck to pay two visits of considerable duration to the camp and, especially as I had had considerable part in arranging for it, to see it thoroughly. Many men have written and many others will write of thiscamp and of the Ceylon pearl fishery generally, but I believe that I saw it from a point of view peculiarly advantageous for seeing and understanding its general effect ; and this is my sole excuse for acceding to the request of my friend Dr. Willey that I should describe, as I saw it, this great effort of recovery of spoil from the Ceylon deep in Spolia Zeylanica, 5S SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. Another great advantage I had which has fallen to the lot of few other officials, and certainly never before to a Lieutenant- Governor with scientific leanings. On a suggestion made to me I gladly provided for the supply of diving dressand apparatus ; and these being on the spot my innate curiosity induced me on several occasions to put on this dress and go down to visit the paars and see for myself how the oysters grow. I believe that Mr. Hornell, Captain Legge, and myself are probably almost the first persons to make use of the diver’s dress for inspecting the bottom of the sea for purely scientific purposes ; and some account of my own experiences may be not without use. I have roughed it in so many places and so many ways that after the idea of myself going down had once suggested and com- mended itself to me I do not think that any qualms or doubts presented themselves. The sensation of being put into the dress is at first certainly rather trying. The weight is of course enormous and most oppressive, and I found that the operation of screwing up of the rivets fastening the very heavy helmet on to the rest of the dress was distinctly painful. Mr. Bartlett, pro- fessional diver, who valetted me on this occasion, certainly did his best to spare me as much inconvenience as possible. But a few months later when I was at the Maldive Islands with H.M.S. “ Highflyer” and, moved by a desire to see for myself the wonderful coral forests and jungles and underwater cliffs of those atolls, l again donned the diver’s dress, as supplied to His Majesty’s ships, I found that both the weight and the painfulness of being screwed up were considerably less. I am assured that the equipment of the “ Highflyer” is identical with those used in constructing the Colombo breakwater—it was one of these that I~ used at the pearl fishery ; but I am positive that for some reason the “ Highflyer” dress caused me the less inconvenience, and if any scientific man wishes to engage in the enterprise of deep sea diving, I should strongly advise him before acquiring his dress to consult the naval authorities. The dress once donned and one’s heavily encumbered body once got over the side of the ship and on to the ladder, the rest is easy. All that is necessary is to keep one’s feet well down when descending the ladder and until one is entirely under water. Neglect, or rather ignorance of this precaution on one occasion brought me into difficulties. Having seen the professional diver swing himself off the ladder instead of first going patiently down to the lowest rung, I thought I would do the same ; with the result that I fell on my back into the water, and that the air distributed within the dress instead of being forced gradually up from feet to head, as would PEARL FISHERY OF 1903. 59 have been the case if I had gone down feet foremost, was forced to the front of chest and legs and kept me kicking on my back on the water. After leaving the ladder feet downward pure passivity is to be recommended until one reaches the bottom. My first depth was 9 fathoms, but it certainly seemed to me to take a very long time to get down those 54 feet, and on the first occasion or two the pain in my ears was intense. I was told that the slower I went down the less acute would this pain be, but after various experi- ments I have not been able to make up my mind whether the longer endured but very slightly less acute pain is preferable to the quicker, sharper sensation. The most surprising thing to me was that as soon as the bottom was once reached all sensation of pain ceased—it was perhaps overwhelmed by the undoubted delight at the novelty of one’s sensations and to exasperation at the small control one had at first over one’s movements under that pressure of water. I could not by any effort keep my feet quite firmly on to the ground; and each twitch which the man who played Providence to me at the other end of the rope gave— doubtless in his nervous anxiety to guide me aright—had the unfortunate effect of throwing me over on to my back or my side or my face. Finally I found that getting about on all fours was the proceeding which gave me the greatest control over my own movements. The light was wonderfully good, as a full green twilight, and I could distinctly see the ship 9 fathoms over my head. It is curious that at the same depth in different parts of the sea the quantity of the light varies considerably. This is probably due to the greater or less quantity of matter floating in the water. The bottom where I first went down was a sandy, slightly un- dulating plain. Here and there at distances of a foot or so apart were small groups of from six to a dozen oysters, each group fastened by the byssus to a stone or piece of loose coral or dead shell ; as far as I could see, no oysters were fastened to the actual bottom. Scattered about among the oysters on the sand were mushroom-shaped and other loose-growing corals, and here and there was a branched coral fastened to the bottom. The fishes and shrimps swam about utterly oblivious of one’s presence, especially a lovely little ultramarine blue fish with a golden yellow tail. It was somewhat exasperating to throw an oyster at a fish and to find that the missile instead of going towards the fish dropped languidly to one’s feet. Of big fish I hardly saw any, and of sea snakes, generally very plentiful in those parts, I saw only one, and that was while I was on my way down one day. Crabs were 60 SPOLIA ZEYLANICGA. fairly abundant, and | came across a striking-looking—indeed vicious-looking—animal of this sort (Rhinolambrus contrarius). To one like myself who has as long as he can remember found a peculiar joy in seeing Nature from new points of view, it is pure delight to make one’s way along the bottom of the sea, picking up shells, corals, starfish(very abundant),sea urchins,and a host of other things which had always before been to one lifeless “ curiosities.” One of my chief purposes in going down was to see the divers actually at work. In but a few moments from leaving the ship and the world to which I had long been accustomed I reached a quite new world and, as it seemed, one apart from all other human beings. Then from the gloom of the distance—it was easier to see upwards than for any distance along the ground— some big thing came rapidly towards one ; it might have been a big fish, but as it came quickly nearer it proved to be a naked Arab swimming gently but rapidly towards me, his rope between his toes, and his hands and arms rapidly sweeping oysters into the basket which hung round his neck. I tried to speak, forgetting that my head was buried in my helmet, but he glided close past me without taking any more notice of me than did the fish. He had perhaps thirty to forty oysters in his basket by that time. But his time was up—after all he could only stay down from 50 to 80 seconds, while I without inconvenience could stop down for half an hour. In an instant he had changed from a swimming to a standing position, and he was rapidly hauled up from me towards heaven, his feet being the last part to disappear, AsI gazed up after him something dark came down through the water and nearly hit me. It was a stone at the end of a rope thrown down for another diver. It was a warning that I had wandered from my own ship till I was under one of the diver’s boats ; and I beat a hasty retreat. I had but to give a pull at the rope, a signal, and I felt myself being pulled rapidly up through the water. I went faster than the bubbles of air which had been rising from my dress, and was carried up through a stream of these bright bubbles. Suddenly it was very light, and some big dark broad thing covered with bubbles was directly above me, and the next moment I hit against it. It was the bottom of the launch, and my next task was to guide myself till I came to and with difficulty succeeded in getting on to the ladder. Then as I stood on the ladder, while the helmet was unscrewed and taken off and the fresh air came, I knew how good fresh air is. While down on the first occasion or two my nose bled rather un- pleasantly, but as this never happened to me afterwards I put it ihe re Ec Sie Redehx: ne a 19 ‘d a0vf of) ‘SWOH SONIHOVSY L33S713 WWvVad JHL en aaa =. ee i ™ \s } fof } pe: 4 ih H . f PEARL FISHERY OF 1903. 61 down to the fact that on those first occasions I had a heavy cold in my head. I was once more back on the Master Attendant’s barque, moored in the middle of the fleet on which the divers were all hurrying up to complete their day’s load within the given time. By noon most of the divers are tired out and, if it has been a fairly successful day, the boats are fairly loaded up. Moreover, at noon at this time of the year the wind almost invariably changes its direction and blows towards the land. At noon, therefore, a gun fired from the Master Attendant’s barque gives the signal for pulling up the anchor, hoisting the sails, and beginning the run home. If the paar which is being fished is some distance from the land, the run home may take any time, according to the strength of that fair wind, from three to five hours. The run home is, I am afraid, a busy and, from a Government point of view, a bad time. The men, other than the tired out divers, occupy themselves nominally in picking over their oysters, throwing away stones, shells, and other useless things which in the hurry have been gathered in with the oysters, and in pre- paring the loads for easy transport from the boats to the shore. But, as a matter of fact, it is well known that this opportunity and these hours are employed in picking over the oysters in a different sense. The finest pearls almost invariably occur just inside the edge of the shells, where they are held in position by so thin a membrane that they appear ready to fall out at any moment. There is no doubt that many of these finest, roundest, and best coloured pearls are picked out during the run home and concealed about the persons of the boat’s crew, and this, despite the fact that each boat has a so-called Government guard on board, and that a further check is supposed to be provided by the Govern- ment steam launches which run in with the fleet, and the crews of which are supposed to keep their eyes very wide open for the illicit practices indicated. It is in this iniquitous practice of picking over that one chief reason why the Government does not get its fair share of the pearls lies. It is as pretty a sight as one can well imagine, this homeward race before a strong wind and over a tropical sea of a hundred or so of ruddy-sailed craft, orientally fantastic in colour and shape, and each deck crowded with a motley crew of brown-skinned men and boys naked but for a few rags of brilliant coloured cloth. Each crew strives to get in first, in order to get first attention and so soonest to dispose of their loads and thus gain rest after a day of really hardlabour. Thereisno lowering of sailsas the shore is approached, no slackening of the speed till, as often as not, each K 25-03 62 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA, boat buries its bows deep in the high sandbank which forms the shore, and comes with a sudden thud so violently to a stand that the expectant crew, each man already loaded with his basket or netted pack of oysters, is almost hurled into the narrow openings in the high wattle fence which surrounds the Government “I COLOMBO : GEORGE J. A. SKEEN, GOVERNMENT PRINTER, CEYLON. 1903. | SPOLIA ZEYLANICA : 2 A Quarterly Publication designed to promote a knowledge of : the Natural: History of Ceylon (exclusive of Botany) for the x information of residents in the Island, and also for the advance- — : ment of Science. ged It will contain Records and Contributions, together with Notes, > cc Abstracts, and Reviews, relating to the economic and systematic es knowledge of the natural resources (Zoology, -Anthrapology, : Geology) of the bes and of the surrounding seas. to the quarter days as possible. a The Journal will be illustrated by line-blocks, balf-tone blo i> and esac ae 50 copies if desired. Subscription, Ks. 5 perannum ; single copies, Re. 1:25; post fi Communications should be addressed to the Director, Cole Museum, : < SPOLIA ZEYLANICA, ISSUED BY THE COLOMBO MUSEUM, CEYLON. COLOMBO : GEORGE J. A. SKEEN, GOVERNMENT PRINTER, CEYLON. 1903. VOL. I.—PART II. JUNE, 1903. CONTENTS. PAGE 1. Reports and Correspondence concerning the Acclimatiza- tion of Ceylon Crows in the Malay Peninsula me 23 2. Camerano, Professor Lorenzo— | Gordians of Ceylon... Se ee 34 3. Green, E. E.— Notes on the Habits of the Green Whip-snake oe 36 4. Notes and Reviews ae ace =~ 38 With Four TWlustrations. | : { [For Rate of Subscription and other Information see back of Cover. | | | SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. A Quarterly Publication designed to promote a knowledge of — .* the Natural History of Ceylon (exclusive of Botany) for om " information of residents in the Island, and also for the advan ce- ment of Science. - knowledge of the aibttral resources Cadena Anthropolog K Geology) of the Island and of the surrounding seas. aay — ha) Communications should be addressed to the Director, ( Colomb Museum. SPOLTA ZEYLANICA. ! \ } 7 THE COLOMBO MUSEUM{: / OEY LON. et Vou. I. Par? HI. NOVEMBER, 1903. CONTENTS. PAGE 1. Shipley, Arthur E.— Some Parasites from Ceylon 5 a te 45 ai 2. im Thurn, E.— ) Sketch of the Ceylon Peark Fishery of 1905 a 56 | 3. Lewis, F.— ‘ Nidification of Gallinago stenura ap sea 66 3 4. Green, B. E.— Nesting Habits of Vrypoxylon intrudens and Stigmus niger soi ae st 68 5. Manders, N.— Species of Wycalesis ... shh ati 71 6. Notes. E. E. Green, C. Drieberg, A. Willey, &c. ns 73 With one plate, three whole page illustrations, and ten text-figures, _Por Rate of Subscription and other Information see back of Cover, | COLOMBO : GEORGE J. A. SKEEN, GOVERNMENT PRINTER, CEYLON, 1903. fox SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. ‘ A Quarterly Publication designed to promote a knowledge one the Natural History of Ceylon (exclusive of Botany) for the oa information of residents in the Island, and also for the advanogs a ment of Science. a a iter It will contain Records and Contributions, together with oleaey , i Abstracts, and Reviews, relating to the economic and systematic knowledge’ of the natural resources (Loology ; AnthrOpeLeeman Geology) of the Island and of the surrounding seas. a Kach Volume will consist of four Parts, the size of which will | ees depend on cirewnstances, and the Parts will be published as near ie : to the quarter days as possible. The Journal will be illustrated by line-blocks, baltf- tone rock, and lithographic plates. Authors will receive 2) copies of their contributions eso ¥ 80 copies if desired.’ its | a ie ~ Subseription, Ks. 0 per anni ; zanee COREE, Re. 1:35. post fre SPOLITA ZEYLANICA. ISSUED BY THE COLOMBO MUSEUM, CEYLON. VoL. I.—PartT IV. . FEBRUARY, 1904. CONTENTS. PAGE 1. Linstow, Dr. O. von— Nematodes in the Collection of the Colombo Museum ... 91 2. Coomaraswamy, A, K.— The Crystalline Rocks of Ceylon wi, a 1055 3. Notes—Uraninite (A. K. Coomaraswamy) ; Peregrine Earthworms ; Rhynchota ; Symbiosis between Bees and Mites ... Les ne oa 112 With two plates and four illustrations in the text. [For Rate of Subscription and other Information see back of Cover. ] COLOMBO : GEORGE J. A. SKEEN, GOVERNMENT PRINTER, CEYLON. 1904, Sol * SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. A Quarterly Publication designed to promote a knowledge of the Natural History of Ceylon (exclusive of Botany) for the information of residents in the Island, and also for the advance- ment of Science. It will contain Records and Contributions, together with Notes, Abstracts, and Reviews, relating to the economic and systematic knowledge of the natural resources (Zoology, Anthropology, Geology) of the Island and of the surrounding seas. Each Volume will consist of four Parts, the size of which will depend on circumstances, and the Parts will be published as near to the quarter days as possible. The Journal will be illustrated by line-blocks, balf-tone blocks, and lithographic plates. Authors will receive 25 copies of their contributions gratis, or 50 copies if desired. Subscription, Rs. 5 per annum ; single copies, Re. 1:25; post free. Communications should be addressed to the Director, Colombo Museum. a Ri Geer cag a ry hier = Pan ; ates ? : We nse 7 at rh I ATT a Mill TT HHH} HHH HEI LT HT | on > , . SUPA tsi ati esee 4asVibediberiirs 114) eo. 440 HSA paaceseiale cand heen nge ee ch oryeeet oe er te ee ppt LOSS