430 



INSECTS. 



[Chap. 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. 1 



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 2 , of which 

 the females are devoid of wings, and some possess no 

 articulated feet. Their larvae construct for themselves 

 cases, which they suspend to a branch frequently of the 

 pomegranate 3 , 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 Eoman fasces, one 



1 Another caterpillar which feeds traversed by a broad green band, 

 on the jasmine flowering Carissa, It is common in the western side of 

 stings with such fury that I have Ceylon. The larvae of the genus 

 known a gentleman to shed tears Adolia are also hairy, and sting 

 while the pain was at its height, with virulence. 

 It is short and broad, of a pale 2 Eumeta, Wlk. 

 green, with fleshy spines on the 3 The singular instincts of a 

 upper surface, each of which seems species of Thecla, Dipsas Isocrates, 

 to be charged with the venom that Fab., in connection with the fruit 

 occasions this acute suffering. The of the pomegranate, were fully de- 

 moth which this caterpillar pro- scribed by Mr. Westwood, in a 

 duces, Ne&ra lepida, Cramer; paper read before the Entomo- 

 Limacodes graciosa, Westw., has logical Society of London in 1835. 

 dark brown wings, the primary 



