PR I- FACE. 



H/l ; . are assured on excellent authority that "ol the making 

 ' ' of books there is no end," whilst to authors may be 

 commended the equally excellent Arab proverb which says 

 that " hurry is of the devil." It is to be hoped that readers 

 of this book may see the connection between these two saws 

 and duly ascribe to the proper quarter any noticeable short- 

 comings. This volume has, indeed, no pretensions to the 

 assumption o\~ any status as a text-book and does not 

 pretend to do much more than provide a narrow and tortuous 

 entrance into the vast and almost untrodden field of Insect 

 Life in Southern India. 



In the closing years of the eighteenth century, thanks to 

 the collections made mainly by the Tranquebar missionaries, 

 the insects of Southern India were perhaps better known 

 than those of any other part of Eastern or Southern Asia, 

 but it is remarkable how little work was done in the succeed- 

 - ntury in Madras in comparison with that done in 

 Ceylon, in Northern India, in China, Japan and Malaysia. 

 It is difficult to say why this should be so, but the tact 

 remains that the Insect Fauna of Southern India is now 

 probably less well known than that of the Himalayan 

 Region. 



Entomology has hitherto been an entirely exotic science 

 in India and collections and observations of Indian Insects 

 have, as a rule, been made only by those ( '.o\ eminent Officials 

 whose tastes lay in that direction and who have looked Oil 

 Entomology as a hobby. During the first half of the nine- 

 teenth century an extensive collection of Lepidoptera was 

 made in the Coimbatore district by Walhouse and towards 

 the end of the century collections (chiefly of Lepidoptera 

 and Coleoptera) were made in the Nilgiris by Sir George 

 Hampson and Messrs. Andrewes, whilst Bolivar described an 

 extensive collection of Orthoptera formed by St. Joseph's 



