476 Mr. Georsfe Lewis o?i a 



t>^ 



lies in the copious rain. Except in the dry season, when 

 both vegetable and animal life languish for showers, 

 there is daily heavy rain. The level flat lands of the 

 coast lying at the foot of the higher altitudes are a more 

 recent formation than the hills, as they are formed of the 

 accumulation of soil washed down from the mountains 

 during long periods of rain, and it will be seen that 

 these low lands have a fauna intermixed with species 

 essentially distinct from those of the interior of the 

 island. The jungle is not so continuously established on 

 the low lands, nor even at an elevation of 2000 feet, as 

 on the hills, the oldest formation, where the only natural 

 roadways through the forest are the mountain torrents, 

 which make and keep clear a passage by the sheer force 

 of the water in the wet monsoon, and in the dry season 

 you can walk for many miles on the granitic formation 

 which paves these ancient channels. In the intermediate 

 districts (2) the jungle trees attain a height of 100 to 

 200 feet, and gradually lessen in proportion to the eleva- 

 tions on which they grow. On the Nuwara Eliya 

 plateau most of the trees are about 40 to 50 feet only, 

 but wherever the forest is, the trees are so closely packed 

 together that they rarely attain to any considerable 

 circumference. And another thing is very notable about 

 the jungle trees ; they are not like our oaks and elms, of 

 a soil-improving nature ; they do not make mould like 

 European deciduous trees ; they return apparently to the 

 soil as little as they take from it. The shed leaves are 

 more like those of the holly and laurel, from which our 

 gardeners would expect little assistance in manuring or 

 improving poor soils. 



Now, in a country like this the Coleoptera are in by far 

 the greater part such as depend on plants and trees for 

 their general welfare. We find subfamilies and genera 

 taking a prominent place in the fauna whose allies in 

 other countries are truly ground-beetles, but which here 

 are herbaceous or arboreal. There are numbers of species 

 of Tricomhjlaayid CoUi/ris, Cicindelidce as much adapted for 

 a foliage-life as those of our coast are for a sand existence. 

 Tricondyla in Coleoptera, Mantispa in Neuroptera, with 

 certain Mantklce {Pterostenes) associate together, seeking 

 their food on. the undergrowth in the forest, and, being 

 possessed of similar instincts, have acquired an analogous 

 form and structure. They are all carnivorous, and roam 

 about foliage, holding their prey with their fore legs, and 



