PIONEERS OF CEYLON NATURAL HISTORY. 79 



A few years later, I find in the Journal of the Asiatic Society for 

 1849 " An Outline of the Tamil System of Natural History," by 

 Simon Casie Chitty. This is a gratifying record of early interest in 

 such subjects by the native community. 



The period from 1850 to 1880 shows a sudden and marked increase 

 of local interest in Natural History. Such well-known names as 

 Kelaart, Layard, Tennent, Thwaites, Ferguson, Wall, and Nietner, 

 appear upon the scene. 



Dr. Kelaart, according to Legge, was " a native of Ceylon, who 

 went out from England in 1849 as Staff Surgeon to the Forces. 

 He appears to have interested himself in all branches of Natural 

 History, and must be regarded as in the front rank of Ceylon 

 Naturalists. In 1849 he published ' Notes on the Geology of Ceylon,' 

 and 1852 saw the appearance of his ' Prodromus FaunseZeylanicae,' 

 the earliest attempt at a systematic arrangement of the fauna of the 

 country. We find him publishing ' Descriptions of New Reptiles ' 

 in 1855, and a ' Report upon the Pearl Oyster ' three years later — 

 a report which is considered, by competent authorities, to contain a 

 theory of pearl formation which was very near the truth. Kelaart 

 was more particularly interested in marine biology, and the volumes 

 of the Journal of the Asiatic Society contain numerous contributions 

 on this subject from his pen." It is interesting to note that Sir 

 Willian Twynam, till now resident in Jaffna, was contemporary 

 with Kelaart, and visited the Pearl Banks with him in 1857. 



Edgar L. Layard, of the Ceylon Civil Service, was a born naturalist. 

 Tennent drew much of his information — ^f or his ' ' Natural History of 

 Ceylon ' ' — from this source , as witnessed by the constant recurrence 

 of Layard's name in that work. He published numerous Papers in 

 the Journal of the Ceylon Asiatic Society, between the years 1849 

 and 1857, and in the " Annals and Magazine of Natural History " 

 for 1852 and 1853. His influence must have been considerable in 

 popularizing an interest in Natural History amongst his contem- 

 poraries in Ceylon. One of his earliest Papers was " On the 

 Formation of a Collection of Lepidoptera in Ceylon," which supplied 

 useful hints to beginners and describes methods of collecting and 

 rearing caterpillars and of setting and preserving the adult insects. 

 His relative and contemporary in the same service — the first Sir 

 Charles Peter Layard — was a conchologist of some repute. He 

 made an extensive collection of Ceylon shells which was consulted 

 by various writers on Conchology. 



The name of Sir Emerson Tennent is too well known to require 

 much comment. His volumes on Ceylon (pubhshed in 1859) and 

 on the " Natural History of Ceylon " (1851) were standard works of 

 the time, and now have a classical reputation. Tennent himself 

 was not a systematic zoologist, and relied upon specialists for the 

 systematic part of his work ; but he must have been an acute 



