CHAPTER VII. 
CEYLON, 1908. 
Latitude of the extreme points visited, 9° 27' N. and 7° 24' N. 
January 7th—March 16th. 
My fortnight in the great Crown Colony in 1904 was so delightful 
that I was glad to seize an opportunity for making its more intimate 
acquaintance. 
Among the passengers on the R.M.S, “Orotava” was Mr. Seth 
Smith, F.Z.S., who was on his way to Australia to obtain living 
specimens of mammals and birds for the Zoological Gardens. At 
Port Said we had a pleasant walk for some distance along the Sweet- 
Water canal, where Mr. Seth Smith saw many more birds than I did 
insects. Three days afterwards (December 29th), the sea being 
smooth, the wind light and variable, the captain brought me a large 
Locust which had just settled upon the bridge. The ship was about 
70 miles from land, off Mecca. The captain told me, and I am 
disposed to agree with him, that the white paint on the upper works 
of the ship appeared to attract insects. Mr. Seth Smith saw a Red 
Locust the next day. 1 
On Sunday, January 5th, we passed close to Minikoi Island, an 
outlying atoll of the Laccadives. It is the only specimen of the 
class that I have seen and the desire to land upon it was naturally 
strong. Two little boys on the ship who had just been reading the 
charming book of that name thought that Minikoi was “ The Coral 
Island.” We tried to think that we could smell Ceylon from an 
immense distance: the aroma is supposed to be that of cinnamon, 
but the element of imagination loomed large. 
1 Schistocerca peregrina , Oliv. Owing to the unfortunate confusion of nomen¬ 
clature the “ locusts ” of ordinary parlance, having short antennae, are included 
in the Acridiidae, or Grasshoppers, and have nothing to do with the long-horned 
Locustidae. 
