296 MR. p. CROWLEY ON PUP^ FROM NATAL. [May 18, 



be necessary for me to revisit the islauds, 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 Male xAtoll 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 Male Atoll. There are a few cats, 

 and former writers on the Maldives mention the presence of the 

 Mongoose ; but I saw none on Male 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. 



"I brought with me a large number of lizards, ground-snakes, 

 beetles, butterflies, fish, sea-animals, and corals, of which I am only 

 able to show a small number to-night. 



" The fauna of the Maldives, i. 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 pupae of Nocturnal 

 Lepidoptera from Natal, and made the following observations: — 



" Some few months since, when Mr. Thomson exhibited some large 

 specimens of Saturniidae hatched in the Gardens from pupas 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 correspondent was therefore 

 asked to send me some cocoons. I received his reply some six weeks 

 since, and a consignment of pupae on Monday the 18th, some of which 

 I now exhibit. In his letter he says : — 'The larvae of all our big 



