[Footnote 1:  The Portuguese had made the attempt previous to the arrival of the Dutch, and a strip of land on the banks of the Kalany river near Colombo, still bears the name of Orta Seda, the silk garden.  The attempt of the Dutch to introduce the true silkworm, the Bombyx mori, took place under the governorship of Ryklof Van Goens, who, on handing over the administration to his successor in A.D. 1663, thus apprises him of the initiation of the experiment:—­“At Jaffna Palace a trial has been undertaken to feed silkworms, and to ascertain whether silk may be reared at that station.  I have planted a quantity of mulberry trees, which grow well there, and they ought to be planted in other directions.”—­VALENTYN, chap. xiii.  The growth of the mulberry trees is noticed the year after in a report to the governor-general of India, but the subject afterwards ceased to be attended to.]

In addition to the Atlas moth and the Mylitta, there are many other Bombycidoe in Ceylon; and, though the silk of some of them, were it susceptible of being unwound from the cocoon, would not bear a comparison with that of the Bombyx mori, or even of the Tusseh moth, it might still prove to be valuable when carded and spun.  If the European residents in the colony would rear the larvae of these Lepidoptera, and make drawings of their various changes, they would render a possible service to commerce, and a certain one to entomological knowledge.

The Wood-carrying Moth.—­There is another family of insects, the singular habits of which will not fail to attract the traveller in the cultivated tracts of Ceylon—­these are moths of the genus Oiketicus,[1] of which the females are devoid of wings, and some possess no articulated feet; the larvae construct for themselves cases, which they suspend to a branch frequently of the pomegranate,[2] surrounding them with the stems of leaves, and thorns or pieces of twigs bound together by threads, till the whole presents the appearance of a bundle of rods about an inch and a half long; and, from the resemblance of this to a Roman fasces, one African species has obtained the name of “Lictor.”  The German entomologists denominated the group Sack-traeger, the Singhalese call them Dalmea kattea or “billets of firewood,” and regard the inmates as human beings, who, as a punishment for stealing wood in some former stage of existence, have been condemned to undergo a metempsychosis under the form of these insects.

[Footnote 1:  Eumeta, Wlk.]

[Footnote 2:  The singular instincts of a species of Thecla, Dipsas Isocrates, Fab., in connection with the fruit of the pomegranate, were fully described by Mr. Westwood, in a paper read before the Entomological Society of London in 1835.]

The male, at the close of the pupal rest, escapes from one end of this singular covering, but the female makes it her dwelling for life; moving about with it at pleasure, and entrenching herself within it, when alarmed, by drawing together the purse-like aperture at the open end.  Of these remarkable creatures there are five ascertained species in Ceylon. Psyche Doubledaii, Westw.; Metisa plana, Walker; Eumeta Cramerii, Westw.; E.  Templetonii, Westw.; and Cryptothelea consorta, Temp.