seen hurrying up from below with his load,
carrying it to the top of the circular heap outside, and throwing it
over, whilst it is so strongly attached as to roll to the bottom without
breaking asunder.

The ants I have been here describing are inoffensive, differing in this
particular from the Dimiya and another of similar size and ferocity,
which is called by the Singhalese _Kaddiya_; and they have a legend
illustrative of their alarm for the bites of the latter, to the effect
that the cobra de capello invested the Kaddiya with her own venom in
admiration of the singular courage displayed by these little
creatures.[1]

[Footnote 1: KNOX'S _Historical Relation of Ceylon_, pt i. ch vi. p.
23.]

LEPIDOPTERA. _Butterflies_.--Butterflies in the interior of the island
are comparatively rare, and, contrary to the ordinary belief, they are
seldom to be seen in the sunshine, They frequent the neighbourhood of
the jungle, and especially the vicinity of the rivers and waterfalls,
living mainly in the shade of the moist foliage, and returning to it in
haste after the shortest flights, as if their slender bodies were
speedily dried up and exhausted by the exposure to the intense heat.

Among the largest and most gaudy of the Ceylon Lepidoptera is the great
black and yellow butterfly (_Ornithoptera darsius_, Gray); the upper
wings, of which measure six inches across, are of deep velvet black, the
lower, ornamented by large particles of satiny yellow, through which the
sunlight passes, and few insects can compare with it in beauty, as it
hovers over the flowers of the heliotrope, which furnish the favourite
food of the perfect fly, although the caterpillar feeds on the
aristolochia and the _betel leaf_ and suspends its chrysalis from its
drooping tendrils.

Next in size as to expanse of wing, though often exceeding it in
breadth, is the black and blue _Papilio Polymnestor_, which darts
rapidly through the air, alighting on the ruddy flowers of the hibiscus,
or the dark green foliage of the citrus, on which it deposits its eggs.
The larvae of this species are green with white bands, and have a hump on
the fourth or fifth segment. From this hump the caterpillar, on being
irritated, protrudes a singular horn of an orange colour, bifurcate at
the extremity, and covered with a pungent mucilaginous secretion. This
is evidently intended as a weapon of defence against the attack of the
ichneumon flies, that deposit their eggs in its