56 



rocks, and carries about 3,000 plants to the acre. Our host, Mr. Duncan, 

 said he controlled about 14,000 acres on various estates, and the average yield 

 of tea all over the island is 400 Ib. of dried tea to the acre, and it takes 

 400 Ib. of green leaf to make 100 Ib. of dried tea. The pruning varies at 

 different altitudes. In the lowest lands in which tea is grown the plants 

 have to be pruned every year, higher up the foot-hills every second year, and 

 the plantations on the tops of the hills only prune every third season. The 

 commercial tea plant is, therefore, never allowed to attain a height of more 

 than 2 feet to 2 feet 6 inches in height. 



Returning the following night to Peradenyia I met Dr. Willis, Director of 

 the laboratories, who advised me to go up to Jaffna, the old Dutch capital of 

 Ceylon, in the extreme north of the island. Travelling all day I reached 

 Jaffna late the same night (245 miles), where two officers of the Agricultural 

 Department met me and made all arrangements for the following day. 



The whole of this part of Ceylon is a flat, sandy plain, covered with cocoa- 

 nut palms and palmyra palms, the chief wealth of the natives ; and my guide, 

 who owned a number of cocoa-nut plantations, said that he would sooner 

 deal in them than rubber plantations. The cocoa-nut palms are manured by 

 tying the cattle to them at night. They will bear a crop in from five to six 

 years. Copra (the dried kernel) is worth from 50 to 80 rupees a ton, the 

 former price paying well. 



We drove out through the country to some mango gardens, and then out 

 among vegetable garden?, where there were a great number of onions, 

 bringels, chili, and melon patches, all watered from shallow wells. We could 

 find no fruit-fly by spreading citronella oil, but soon found many melons 

 badly infested with fruit-fly maggots, and collected a number, from which, on 

 board ship, after leaving Colombo, I subsequently bred a number of the 

 Indian Melon Fly (Dacus cucurbitce). 



After going through the markets I called upon Sir William Twynem, who 

 has a very fine collection of technical and ethnological interest, made during 

 his long residence in Ceylon. Returning to Colombo, I spent the next 

 morning at the Colombo Museum, where Dr. W^iley showed me all the 

 entomological collections. 



I left Colombo for Freemantle on the 6th of July, arriving at Freemantle 

 on the 16th. As soon as I had landed I went up to Perth, and called at the 

 Department of Agriculture, where, in the absence of the Entomologist in 

 America, and the Director in the country, I met Mr. Hooper, who introduced 

 me to Mr. Newman, the Assistant Entomologist. He showed me over the 

 library, and the hot-house used as a breeding room or insectavium. 



In the latter there were several breeding-cages, with quantities of fruit-fly 

 pupae placed on the floors of the cages, and a quantity of fruit, in a great 

 part of which Mr. Newman informed me he had placed a number of fruit-fly 

 larvae under the skin, for the parasites to lay their eggs in them. There 

 were at least three different species of parasites in the cages, those in 

 the guava bred from guavas bought, packed, and forwarded from Bangalore 

 by the West Australian Entomologist the year before. Many, Mr. Newman 

 informed me, had been distributed in large numbers among the orchards, 

 but it was too soon to look for results. This was practically the extent of 

 their insectarium, except a parasite of the cabbage aphis, which they were 

 breeding to send out to the cabbage-growers about the gold-fields. As 

 regards a pinned or mounted reference-named collection, Mr. Newman said 

 the Department had no collection of any kind ; that there was an insect 

 cabinet in the room full of fruit-flies and other economic specimens, but it 



