408 



INSECTS. 



[Chap. XII. 



in the shape of a beetle is sent to the house of some 

 person or family whose destruction it is intended to 

 compass, and who presently falls sick and dies. The only 

 means of averting this catastrophe is, that some one, 

 himself an adept in necromancy, should perform a 

 counter-charm, the effect of which is to send back the 

 disguised beetle to destroy his original employer ; for 

 in such a conjuncture the death of one or the other is 

 essential to appease the demon whose intervention has 

 been invoked. Hence the discomfort of a Singhalese 

 on rinding a beetle in his house after sunset, and his 

 anxiety to expel but not to kill it. 



Tortoise Beetles.— There is one family of insects, the 

 members of which cannot fail to strike the traveller by 

 their singular beauty, the Gassididce or tortoise beetles, 

 in which the outer shell overlaps the body, and the 

 limbs are susceptible of being drawn entirely within it. 

 The rim is frequently of a different tint from the centre, 

 and one species which I have seen is quite startling 

 from the brilliancy of its colouring, which gives it the 

 appearance of a ruby enclosed in a frame of pearl ; but 

 this wonderful effect disappears immediately on the 

 death of the insect. 



Okthoptera. Leaf -insects. — But in relation to 

 the insects of Ceylon the admiration of their colours is 

 still less exciting than the astonishment created by the 

 forms in which some of the families present themselves ; 

 especially the "soothsayers" {Mantidce) and "walking 

 leaves." The latter exhibiting the most cunning of 

 all nature's devices for the preservation of her creatures, 

 are found in the jungle in all varieties of hues, from 

 the pale yellow of an opening bud to the rich green of 



1 Phyllium siccifolium. 



