a singular illustration of their instinct. To carry up
each particle of sand by itself would be an endless waste of labour, and
to carry two or more loose ones securely would be to them embarrassing,
if not impossible. To overcome the difficulty they glue together with
their saliva so much earth or sand as is sufficient for a burden, and
each ant may be seen hurrying up from below with his load, carrying it
to the top of the circular heap outside, and throwing it over, the mass
being 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_. 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_.--In the interior of the island butterflies
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 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, and are of deep velvet black,
the lower ornamented by large particles of satiny yellow, through which
the sunlight passes. 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,