160 SPOLIA ZEYLANICA. 



pot riddled with holes is set up in the field with a burning 

 lamp inside. The flies collect round the heated pot and are 

 thus destroyed. 



But there are often extraordinary " remedies " (favoured by the 

 more superstitious) carried out through the agency of Ihe village 

 soothsayer. One form of this is where the soothsayer, choosing 

 his day and hour, enters the field with some tender cocoanut 

 leaves plaited into a rough mat or " ola," and supervises the erection 

 of a tiny booth or " mal-messa " on which a floral offering is placed. 

 In this booth the soothsayer burns some camphor, while he 

 indulges in a weird incantation. The final act in this ceremony 

 consists of the stretching of ropes from the mal-messa to various 

 points in the boundaries of the field. 



The following is another form of charming. The soothsayer, as 

 before cboosiug his day and hour, proceeds to the field clothed in 

 spotless white, erects a mal-messa on which he gets some rice 

 boiled in cocoanut milk (the expressed juice of the kernel of the 

 cocoanut), and not the liquid contents of the cocoanut as generally 

 understood, and then with a branch from the inflorescence of 

 the areca palm proceeds to sprinkle the liquid from the boiling 

 pot over the fleld, muttering incantations the while. 



A variation of this last consists in sprinkling charmed water 

 from a new clay pot by means of the twig of a lime tree. 



In some Catholic villages it is the custom to carry a few paddy 

 flies to the nearest church, there to be anathematized, and let loose 

 again in the field to influence the colony of pests to quit. 



For much of the information in this note I am indebted to Mr. 

 P. Samaranayaka, late Agricultural Instructor, now of the Veteri- 

 nary Department. 



C. DRIEBERG. 



Government Stock Garden, 



June 15, 1905. 



7. The Lacteal Tract of Loris gracilis. — In Flower and 

 Lydekker's well-known '* Introduction to the Study of Mammals " 

 (London, 1891) it is pointed out that in the order Primates "there 

 are always two mammae in the pectoral region, except in Chi- 

 romys''' (I.e., p. 681). 



The long-tailed African lemurs of the genus Qalago have four 

 teats, namely, two pectoral and two inguinal (/.c, p. 690). 



In the tailless Oriental lemurs belonging to the sub-family 

 Lorisinae there are said to be two pectoral mammas only (?.c., p. 691). 



Ghiromysy the Aye-aye of Madagascar, has two inguinal mammae 

 only {I.e., p. 695). 



