74 SPOLIA ZBYLANICA. 



pupfe of the workers — both major and minor — are naked. This 

 seems to be explicable only on the theory that the silk that wonld 

 normally be employed in the construction of the cocoon is 

 systematically converted to the purposes of nest-building, and 

 that the larvae have consequently lost the habit of cocoon 

 formation. 



In a large nest of CEcophylla recently opened by me I found 

 many hundreds of naked pupae, but not a single cocoon. Can the 

 absence of any silken covering to the pupae of other species be 

 similarly accounted for ? Bingham, in his work on Indian Ants 

 (Fauna B. I., Hymenoptera, vol. II.), does not specify which ants 

 construct cocoons and whicli have naked pupje. 



At the time of the publication of my former note quoted above 

 I was unaware that the same fact had already been observed and 

 published, several years previously, by Mr. Saville Kent. A 

 description and figure illustrating this habit appeared in Mr. 

 Saville Kent's work, "The Naturalist in Australia," published in 

 1897, but I am informed that a still earlier note appeared in one 

 of the Australian scientific journals. 



E. ERNEST GREEN. 

 Peradeniya, July, 1903. 



3. A Case of Protective Mimicry. — In " Nature" of 25th June, 

 1903, is an illustrated article (taken over from the "Zoologist" for 

 May) headed " New Case of Protective Mimicry in a Caterpillar," 

 describing a Georaetrid larva from Sarawak that disguises itself 

 by attaching to spines on its back the buds of an Umbelliferous 

 flower upon which it feeds. Failure to rear the caterpillar pre- 

 vented the determination of the species. 



I would draw attention to the fact that we have, in Ceylon also, 

 a Geometrid larva that protects itself in a somewhat similar way. 

 I have bred the insect and proved it to be the larva of Comibcena 

 hiplagiata, Moore, or, as it is now called, Uliocnrni is cassidara, 

 Guen. The caterpillar is figured in Lep. Heteroc, Brit. Mus., 

 Part IX.,» plate CLXXVL, figs. 18, 18a. The segments of the body 

 are armed with paired fleshy processes to which the larva attaches 

 small pieces of leaves and withered flowers, which afford an 

 excellent disguise as long as the insect remains motionless in 

 its characteristic attitude. 



E. ERNEST GREEN. 



Peradeniya, July 20, 1903. 



* The Miicrolcpidoincra Hoterocera of Ceylon, by SirG. F. Hampson. 1893. 



