256 



NATURE 



\July 13, 1882 



covered with screw pine (Pandanus), &c. From this 

 swamp springs a narrow sandy neck of land extending 

 northward to the river's mouth, and so lying as to inclose 

 a peaceful little lake in front of our garden. A few fishing 

 huts are erected on this tongue of land, and from morning 

 to night it presents a constant succession of animated 

 and amusing pictures. Here in the early morning, before 

 sunrise, the inhabitants of the huts assemble to take their 

 morning bath in the river. Then the horses and oxen 

 have their turn, and are brought down to water. Busy 

 washers are at their work all day, beating the clothes with 

 flat stones, and spreading them on the shore to dry. 

 Fishing boats go up and down continually ; and in the 

 evening, when they have been drawn up to land, and the 

 great square sails have been spread to dry, the lagoon, 

 with its long row of motionless sails, looks wonderfully 

 picturesque, especially when the evening breeze swells 

 the sails, and the sun, sinking into the sea, floods the 

 whole shore with a radiance of gold, orange, and purple. 

 .... The garden of Whist Bungalow has been con- 

 verted, by the care and taste of its proprietor, into a 

 veritable earthly paradise, containing examples of almost 

 every native plant of importance, and thus forming a 

 valuable botanical collection, as well as a fragrant and 

 delightful pleasure garden. On the very first morning of 

 my stay, as I wandered in rapturous delight under the 

 shade of palms and fig trees, bananas and acacias, I 

 gained a very comprehensive idea of the flora of the 

 plains. Here the noble palm, in all its variety of foliage 

 and fruit, rears its stately columns ; cocoa and talipat, 

 areca and borassus, caryota and palmyra ; here the 

 banana spreads its great feathery leaves to the wind, and 

 displays its clusters of precious golden fruit. As well as 

 various kinds of the common banana (Musa sapientuui), 

 a fine example of the Traveller' s tree of Madagascar may 

 here be seen {Urania speciosa). It stands just at the 

 division of the principal walk, from which the path to 

 the right leads to the bungalow, and that to the left 

 brings us to a magnificent specimen of the banyan or 

 sacred fig tree (Fiats bengalensis), forming, with its hang- 

 ing air-roots and numerous stems, a very striking object ; 

 beautiful Gothic arches open out among the roots which, 

 pillar-wise, support the main structure of the tree. Other 

 trees of various groups (terminalia, laurels, myrtles, iron- 

 wood trees, bread-fruit, &c.) are over-grown and inter- 

 twined with those lovely creeping and climbing plants 

 which play so important a part in the flora of Ceylon. 

 These belong to the most varied families, for in the dense 

 forests of this magic island, and under the favourable 

 influences of moisture and warmth, a countless multitude 

 of climbing plants strive and cling, and grasp their way 

 upward to the light and air. 



" Among the charms of this most lovely garden must be 

 included the large-leaved Calla plants or Aroideas, and 

 the graceful feathery ferns, two groups of plants, which, 

 both by their individual mass and by the beauty and size 

 of their development, occupy an important place in the 

 lower flora of Ceylon. Scattered among them are many 

 of the finest shrubs and flowering plants of the tropics, 

 partly indigenous, partly introduced from other tropical 

 regions, especially from South America, but all perfectly 

 at home here. Among these rises the stately Hibiscus, 

 with great yellow or red flowers, the flame tree or acacia, 

 a mass of splendid flame-coloured clusters (Cossalpinia) ; 

 venerable tamarinds with their aromatic blossoms ; while 

 from every branch hang clinging convolvuli with gigantic 

 bell-shaped flowers, and aristolochias, yellow and brown. 

 Rubiaceous plants, such as lilies, orchids, &c, bear extra- 

 ordinarily large and beautiful blossoms. . . . The animal 

 iife inhabiting '.his garden of Eden does not altogether 

 correspond in variety and abundance with its vegetable 

 world ; this is especially the case with its larger and 

 more striking ferns. In this respect, as far as 1 have 

 been able to ascertain, the island is inferior to the 



Indian mainland and to Sunda Island, and still more so 

 to tropical Africa and Brazil. I must confess that my 

 first impression was one of disappointment, which rather 

 increased than diminished as I came to know the fauna 

 more intimately, even in the wilder parts of the island. I 

 had expected to find the trees and bushes thronged with 

 apes and parrots,[and the flowering plants with butterflies 

 and winged insects of curious form and brilliant hue. 

 But my expectations were doomed to remain unfulfilled, 

 and my only consolation was that other zoologists visiting 

 the island had been equally disappointed. Nevertheless, 

 careful search reveals much that is curious and interest- 

 ing, even to the zoologist, and in its main features the 

 fauna of Ceylon, though not so rich and brilliant, is quite 

 as singular and characteristic as its flora. 



" The yertebrate animals which first claimed my atten- 

 tion in Whist Bungalow and the immediate neighbour- 

 hood of Colombo, were numerous reptiles of brilliant 

 colours and curious forms, especially snakes and grass- 

 hoppers, and pretty little tree frogs ijxalus), whose weird, 

 bell-like note, resounded in the evenings. The birds 

 chiefly visiting the gardens are starlings and crows, water- 

 wagtails and bee-catchers, and above all the pretty little 

 honey-sucker (Nectarinia), which here takes the place 

 of the humming-bird ; kingfishers and herons abound on 

 the river banks. Among mammalia the most frequently 

 occurring is the pretty little squirrel that leaps about 

 among the trees and shrubs, and is very tame and con- 

 fiding ; its colour is a brown grey, with three white stripes 

 lengthwise down its back (Sciuriis tristriatus). Among 

 the insects, dense swarms of which abound everywhere, 

 the first to be named are ants (from the minutest to the 

 most gigantic sizes) including the destructive termites or 

 white ant ; wasps and bees among the hymenoptera, and 

 gnats and flies among the diptera are also very abundant. 

 The larger and finer forms of insect life, such as chafers, 

 butterflies, &c, do not exist in any proportion to the flora 

 of the island. Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets, &c), 

 on the other hand, are very varied and curious in form. 

 I will content myself at present with this cursory mention 

 of a subject to which I hope later to return. 



" Of articulate animals the spiders (Arachnida) form 

 a very interesting and curious class, from the minutest 

 mites and ticks upwards to the bird-spinners and scorpions. 

 The closely-allied Millipeds or Myriapodae are very 

 numerous and of colossal size, sometimes as much as a 

 foot long. I saw one famous specimen on my first 

 morning in the garden of Whist Bungalow, but I was too 

 lost in admiration of the glories of the vegetable kingdom 

 round me to have time for a nearer examination of the 

 animal world." 



In this first intoxication of delight which accompanies 

 the realisation of a life-long dream, we must for the present 

 leave Prof. Haeckel, hoping in a future number to give 

 some further account of his observations on the fauna and 

 flora of Ceylon. 



NOTES 

 We hear that Princeton College, New Jersey, is going to 

 despatch a second scientific expedition this summer to the " bad 

 lands " of Dakotah and Nebraska in search of fossils. It will 

 be under the charge of Mr. W. B. Scoti, of the "E. M." Geo- 

 logical Museum of Princeton, who ii known to many readers of 

 Nature on this side of the Atlantic by his papers on the develop- 

 ment of Petromyzon, &c. A former expedition of a similar kind, 

 undertaken in 1877 under the same auspices, and composed of 

 Messrs. Scott, H. F. Osborn, and F. Speir, jun., succeeded in 

 making a valuable collection of vertebrate remains, which have 

 been fully described in the " Palaxmtological Report of the 

 Princeton Scientific Expedilion of 1877 " (Princeton, 1878), and 

 now adorn the geological museum there. 



