430 INSECTS. [Cuar. XII. 
Attention being thus directed to the quarter whence 
an assailant has lowered himself down, the caterpillars 
above will be found in clusters, sometimes amounting to 
hundreds, clinging to the branches and the bark, with a 
few straggling over the leaves or suspended from them 
by lines. These pests are so annoying to children as 
well as destructive to the foliage, that it is often neces- 
sary to singe them off the trees by a flambeau fixed on 
the extremity of a pole; and as they fall to the ground 
they are eagerly devoured by the crows and domestic 
fowls.! 
The Wood-carrying Moth. — There is another family 
of insects, the singular habits of which will not fail to 
attract the traveller in the cultivated tracts of Ceylon 
~——these are moths of the genus Oiketicus®, of which 
the females are devoid of wings, and some possess no 
articulated feet. Their larve construct for themselves 
cases, which they suspend to a branch frequently of the 
pomegranate’, surrounding them with the stems of 
leaves, and thorns or pieces of twigs bound together by 
threads, till the whole presents the appearance of a 
bundle of rods about an inch and a half long; and, 
from the resemblance of this to a Roman fasces, one 
traversed by a broad green band. 
1 Another caterpillar which feeds 
on the jasmine flowering Carissa, 
stings with such fury that I have 
known a gentleman to shed tears 
while the pain was at its height. 
It is short and broad, of a pale 
green, with fleshy spines on the 
upper surface, each of which seems 
to be charged with the venom that 
oceasions this acute suffering. The 
moth which this caterpillar pro- 
duces, Neera lepida, Cramer; 
Limacodes graciosa, Westw., has 
dark brown wings, the primary 
It is common in the western side of 
Ceylon. The larve of the genus 
Adolia are also hairy, and sting 
with virulence. 
2 Humeta, Wik. 
8’ The singular instincts of a 
species of Thecla, Dipsas Isocrates, 
Fab., in connection with the fruit 
of the pomegranate, were fully de- 
scribed by Mr. Westwood, in a 
paper read before the Entomo- 
logical Society of London in 1835. 
