note 1: The Portuguese had made the attempt previous to the arrival
of the Dutch, and a strip of land on the banks of the Kalany river near
Colombo, still bears the name of Orta Seda, the silk garden. The attempt
of the Dutch to introduce the true silkworm, the _Bombyx mori_, took
place under the governorship of Ryklof Van Goens, who, on handing over
the administration to his successor in A.D. 1663, thus apprises him of
the initiation of the experiment:--"At Jaffna Palace a trial has been
undertaken to feed silkworms, and to ascertain whether silk may be
reared at that station. I have planted a quantity of mulberry trees,
which grow well there, and they ought to be planted in other
directions."--VALENTYN, chap. xiii. The growth of the mulberry trees is
noticed the year after in a report to the governor-general of India, but
the subject afterwards ceased to be attended to.]

In addition to the Atlas moth and the Mylitta, there are many other
_Bombycidoe_ in Ceylon; and, though the silk of some of them, were it
susceptible of being unwound from the cocoon, would not bear a
comparison with that of the _Bombyx mori_, or even of the Tusseh moth,
it might still prove to be valuable when carded and spun. If the
European residents in the colony would rear the larvae of these
Lepidoptera, and make drawings of their various changes, they would
render a possible service to commerce, and a certain one to
entomological knowledge.

_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_,[1] of which the females are devoid of wings, and some
possess no articulated feet; the larvae construct for themselves cases,
which they suspend to a branch frequently of the pomegranate,[2]
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 African species has obtained the name of
"Lictor." The German entomologists denominated the group _Sack-traeger_,
the Singhalese call them _Dalmea kattea_ or "billets of firewood," and
regard the inmates as human beings, who, as a punishment for stealing
wood in some former stage of existence, have been condemned to undergo a
metempsychosis under the form of these insect