296 MR. P. CROWLEY ON PUP FROM NATAL. [May 18, 
be necessary for me to revisit the islands, when I shall commence at 
the southernmost Atoll, and hope to gradually work my way north. 
I hope to leave next September on my second journey. The Ethno- 
graphical collection which I was able to bring back is now exhibited 
in the Ceylon Court of the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, and this 
has taken up so much of my time that I have so far been unable to 
classify and arrange my zoological specimens. A short paper 
descriptive of my stay on MAlé Atoll will shortly be read before the 
Royal Geographical Society. 
“The zoology of the Maldives is not of importance so far as animals 
are concerned. ‘ Domestic animals have been imported from India ; 
and there are at present bullocks, cows, sheep, and goats on the 
islands ; the first named, however, are few in number, and all belong 
to the Sultan; but the last are reared by the Maldivians, and there 
are about five hundred of them on Malé Atoll. There are a few cats, 
and former writers on the Maldives mention the presence of the 
Mongoose; but I saw none on Malé Atoll, and all the natives with 
whom I came in contact told me they had never seen any. Flying- 
foxes are numerous and very destructive, but their ravages are 
eclipsed by those of the cocoa-nut rats, who destroy thousands of 
nuts yearly. I found a kind of musk-rat, with black-and-white fur 
and a pointed tail, in large numbers. 
**T brought with me a large number of lizards, ground-snakes, 
beetles, butterflies, fish, sea-animals, aud corals, of which I am only 
able to show a small number to-night. 
“The fauna of the Maldives, z. e. of the Northern Atolls, is very 
similar to that of India and Ceylon; I have been given to understand, 
on the other hand, that on the Southern Atolls it resembles that of 
Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Madagascar. Birds and butterflies 
are only seen at certain seasons; the north-east monsoon brings 
these from India and Ceylon, which are then to be found on most 
islands of the Northern Atolls, whilst during the south-west monsoon 
species from Mauritius &c. are brought to the Southern Atolls. 
“The Maldive Islands are nearly all of coral-formation. I found 
several pieces of lava and pumice-stone on the sea-shore ; but these 
evidently came from Java at the time of the great eruption and 
earthquake there, as the natives assured me they had only been seen 
for the last two or three years.” 
Mr. Philip Crowley, F.Z.S., exhibited some pupze of Nocturnal 
Lepidoptera from Natal, and made the following observations : — 
“Some few months since, when Mr. Thomson exhibited some large 
specimens of Saturniide hatched in the Gardens from pup received 
from South Africa, I asked if any one present could tell me whether 
these species were subterranean in their pupa state, and I could get no 
satisfactory answer ; one or two said they believed they spun up in 
the leaves of the food-plant. My Natal correspondeut was therefore 
asked to send me some cocoons. I received his reply some six weeks 
since, and a consignment of pupze on Monday the 18th, some of which 
I now exhibit. In_ his letter he says:—‘ The larve of all our big 
