f the common
species exhibit such remarkable varieties, as to afford ample means for
creating new nominal species," p. 280. The difference exhibited between
the insects of Ceylon and those of Hindustan and the Dekkan are noticed
by Mr. Walker in the present work, p. ii. ch. vii, vol. i. p. 270. See
on this subject RITTER'S _Erdkunde_, vol. iv. p. 17.]

Still in the infancy of geographical knowledge, and before Ceylon had
been circumnavigated by Europeans, the mythical delusions of the Hindus
were transmitted to the West, and the dimensions of the island were
expanded till its southern extremity fell below the equator, and its
breadth was prolonged till it touched alike on Africa and China.[1]

[Footnote 1: GIBBON, ch. xxiv.]

The Greeks who, after the Indian conquests of Alexander, brought back
the earliest accounts of the East, repeated them without material
correction, and reported the island to be nearly twenty times its actual
extent. Onesicritus, a pilot of the expedition, assigned to it a
magnitude of 5000 stadia, equal to 500 geographical miles.[1]
Eratosthenes attempted to fix its position, but went so widely astray
that his first (that is his most southern) parallel passed through it
and the "Cinnamon Land," the _Regio Cinnamomifera_, on the east coast of
Africa.[2] He placed Ceylon at the distance of seven days' sail from the
south of India, and he too assigned to its western coast an extent of
5000 stadia.[3] Both those authorities are quoted by Strabo, who says
that the size of Taprobane was not less than that of Britain.[4]

[Footnote 1: STRABO, lib. v. Artemidorus (100 B.C.), quoted by Stephanus
of Byzantium, gives to Ceylon a length of 7000 stadia and a breadth of
500.]

[Footnote 2: STRABO, lib. ii. c. i. s. 14.]

[Footnote 3: The text of Strabo showing this measure makes it in some
places 8000 (Strabo, lib. v.); and Pliny, quoting Eratosthenes, makes it
7000.]

[Footnote 4: STRABO, lib. ii. c. v. s. 32. Aristotle appears to have had
more correct information, and says Ceylon was not so large as
Britain.--_De Mundo_ ch. iii.]

The round numbers employed by those authors, and by the Greek
geographers generally, who borrow from them, serve to show that their
knowledge was merely collected from rumours; and that in all probability
they were indebted for their information to the stories of Arabian or
Hindu sailors returning from the Eastern seas.

Pliny learned from the Singhalese Ambassador who vi