visit to Ceylon. ■ 479 



tion of the alluvial soil where they reside ? Nature does 

 not at present supply us with such handy data as the 

 latter for ascertaining the age of a species, but I am not 

 inclined to favour the suggestion of migration. I believe- 

 they are descendants of forms which resided in primeval 

 times in the open spaces of the mountains while the 

 jungle was yet forming on the hills, and that they have 

 gradually occupied the plains as they were formed by the 

 rains. OpMonea and Casnonia I give as examples of 

 genera abundant at Colombo, and which extend to the 

 extreme east of equinoctial Asia, and which are, as 

 the Bemhidia, undoubtedly introduced by the ordi- 

 nary methods of natural conveyance. 



The cocoa-nut palm, which is necessarily confined to the 

 coast, as tbe bulky nut requires human agencies to carry 

 it beyond the area of littoral inundations, here nourishes 

 a few species, notably the large SplienopJtorus. And the 

 Wedas, and other early races of Ceylon, have always been 

 confined to the lowlands, and, even had they reached the 

 higher altitudes, they would not probably have carried 

 the palm with them, for their civilisation has hardly led 

 them to even the most simple horticulture. The palm, 

 therefore, has had no chance of undergoing those hard- 

 ening processes which might enable it to stand the colder 

 climate of the higher districts. Batocera is erroneously 

 called the cocoa-nut beetle, but this genus feeds both here 

 and in Japan on the half-embedded branch-like roots of 

 the larger forest trees. Speaking of Longicornia, it may 

 be well to note that they are rarer in the lowlands than 

 in the higher regions of dense forests, for they are not 

 attached to the palms which grow largely in the area of 

 the coast-level to the exclusion of the trees suited to 

 them. There are only a few land-leeches near Colombo, 

 which is an immense comfort to any one wishing to roam 

 in the jungle. 



Section II. — Kandy, Balangoda, and Kitulgalle are 

 places of an intermediate altitude, which I visited. At 

 the first place is the botanical garden of Peradeniya, 

 supported by our Government ; it is bounded on one side 

 by a fair-sized river, and the trees in it are isolated and 

 well grown. In- the middle of the garden stood a very 

 large fig, eight or ten feet in diameter, which had been 

 dead about three years, and by the kindness of the 

 superintendent I was permitted to bark it. After the 

 lower part had been examined, a Singhalese was sent up 



