CHAP. VI.] CEYLON INSECTS. 269 



robes, will not venture though a net. 1 But, notwith- 

 standing the opinion of Spence 2 , that nets with meshes 

 an inch square will effectually exclude them, I have been 

 satisfied by painful experience that (if the theory is not 

 altogether fallacious) at least the modern mosquitoes 

 of Ceylon are uninfluenced by the same considerations 

 which restrained those of the Me under the successors 

 of Cambyses. 



List of Ceylon Insects. 



For the following list of the insects of the island, and 

 the remarks prefixed to it, I am indebted to Mr. F. 

 Walker, by whom it has been prepared after a careful 

 inspection of the collections made by Dr. Templeton, 

 Mr. E. L. Layard, and others ; as well as those in the 

 British Museum and in the Museum of the East India 

 Company. 



" A short notice of the aspect of the Island will afford the 

 best means of accounting, in some degree, for its entomological 

 Fauna : first, as it is an island, and has a mountainous central 

 region, the tropical character of its productions, as in most 

 other cases, rather diminishes, and somewhat approaches that 

 of higher latitudes. 



" The coast-region of Ceylon, and fully one-third of its 

 northern part, have a much drier atmosphere than that of the 

 rest of its surface ; and their climate and vegetation are nearly 

 similar to those of the Carnatic, with which this island may 

 have been connected at no very remote period. 3 But if, on 

 the contrary, the land in Ceylon is gradually rising, the dif- 

 ference of its Fauna from that of Central Hindustan is less 

 remarkable. The peninsula of the Dekkan might then be 

 conjectured to have been nearly or wholly separated from the 

 central part of Hindustan, and confined to the range of mount- 

 ains along the eastern coast ; the insect-fauna of which is as 



1 HERODOTUS, Euterpe, xcv. 



2 KIRBY and SPENCE'S Entomology, 

 letter iv. 



3 On the subject of this conjecti 

 see ante, Vol. I. Pt. I. ch. i. p. 7. 



