MISCELLANEOUS NOTES. 489 



No. V.— PROTECTION OF LARVAE. 



I met with a very remarkable thing a few days ago, which I have never seen 

 before ; and I send you a short account of it for the favour of publication in the 

 Journal, in the hope that it may attract the attention of some member who 

 may be able to throw light on it. Walking along a disused road through forest 

 country, I noticed a large tree, of which the whole trunk and every branch, 

 up to its extreme point, was wrapped in a tissue of pure white silk. I first 

 thought this might be the work of spiders, but on closer inspection I found 

 abundant evidence that the tree had been devastated by a host of minute larvae. 

 Their droppings lay thick on the leaves of the bushes below, like black powder, 

 and in the silk itself I found a great many of their cast skins. I have examined 

 these with a lens, and have no doubt they were the larvae of a moth. They had 

 destroyed every leaf on the tree, eating the soft substance only and leaving the 

 skeleton. This must have happened some time ago, probably during the rains, 

 and in many places the silk had been torn, or blown away, but in other places 

 a yard of it might, with ;i little care, have been removed in a single piece. I 

 brought away a small piece, which I send you for inspection. In appearance 

 it is exactly like fine tissue paper, quite strong enough to be folded and unfolded 

 without injury ; but on examination you will find that it consists of two 

 sheets, between which the larvae probably moved, judging by the situation of 

 most of the skins. To carry out such a stupendous piece of work, there must 

 have been not thousands, but millions of larvae, and it !is difficult to imagine 

 how they could work together to produce a tissue so perfectly uniform. The 

 trunk of the tree was about three feet in circumference. The bark did not 

 appear to have been eaten. About the foot of the tree there were great loose 

 cobwebs of the same silk, embracing parts of the nearest grass and bushes. 



E. H. AITKEN. 



Ankola, North Canara, 7th December, 1891. 



No. VI.— A NEW METHOD OF PRESERVING AND MOUNTING 

 ZOOLOGICAL SPECIMENS. 



The following is an extract from an interesting paper read by Mr. Haly of 

 the Columbo Museum before the Ceylon Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 

 on .30th September, 1891 :— 



"This paper ought, perhaps, to be confined to reading a simple recipe, which 

 would only occupy your attention a minute or two ; but in these days in which 

 the development of everything is so carefully studied from fans and lawn-tennis 

 bats to the nebulte, I have thought that, perhaps, a short history of how the 

 results exhibited in this room to-night have been arrived at, might not be en- 

 tirely devoid of interest, although of an excessively technical character. The 

 plot of my story may be summed up in carboUc acid : Carbolic acid as a failure 

 and carbolic acid as a success. On taking charge of the Museum in 1875 I had 



