40 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 
INTRODUCTION. 
N India, the Wonderland of Antiquity, there may yet remain 
many a secret unrecognized and unsuspected. It is my good 
fortune to raise the curtain upon an admirable nature-play ; minute 
insects, in appearance resembling microlepidoptera and not second 
to these in elegance and beauty of tint of the scaly covering, and yet 
only simple* ‘‘ woodlice,” a series of forms of the most varied des- 
eription, of which only scanty fragments have hitherto been reported 
upon, here enjoy their obscure existence. 
I am indebted to Mr. E. Ernest Green, the Government Entomolo- 
gist at Peradeniya, Ceylon, for the opportunity of examining a rich 
collection of these exquisite animals from Ceylon. Doubtless 
numerous other species will still be found in the Indian Region, and 
the specimens which have occasionally reached my hands from the 
tropical regions of other parts of the world only indicate what a 
wealth of forms may yet be expected. 
For a long time I had contemplated a monographic investigation 
of the scale-bearing Copeognatha, so that I gladly seized the oppor- 
tunity to realize this idea, the more so because the abundant mate- 
rial from Ceylon put me into a position to finally establish and 
accurately illustrate a series of types described by Hagen from 
Ceylon in 1858 and 1859. 
My hearty thanks are due to my friend and esteemed colleague, 
Professor F. Karsch, since I have only been able to carry this work 
through by the use, at home, of his excellent Zeiss-microscope. 
In the following pages the morphological details will be found 
under the several families. 
PRESERVATION AND PREPARATION. 
For the preservation of scaly Copeognatha and of scaly insects in 
general the use of alcohol'or of other fluids is in no case to be recom- 
mended, because the scales are mostly detached in the fluid and the 
design of the scale-covering can therefore no longer be recognized. 
The scale-bearing Copeognatha are best preserved dry, and should 
be mouuted upon minute needles of hard nickel and fixed on cubes 
of pith or hetrer still upon small cardboard slips, the so-called 
* The term * woodlice ’-—as used by Dr. Enderlein—must not be confused 
with tng crustacean animus popularly known by that name in England. 
The subjects of tnis paper are true insects, belonging to a family of which 
the commoner species are recognized in England by the name ‘ booklice.’ 
