PAINTING OF CATERPILLARS. 259 



ranged in stripes and figures, as to form a pattern than which 

 a lady might purchase at a Berlin warehouse one less rich and 

 elegant.* 



More common specimens of showy caterpillars are the 

 growth of every garden. Most common of all, the speckled 

 feeders on the cabbage, the striped " lacqueys," and the black 

 and yellow spotted " magpies," which commit their leaf lar- 

 cenies on the gooseberry and currant. Apropos of spotted 

 caterpillars and gooseberry and currant bushes, we may notice 

 that, frequently besetting the latter, and reducing their leaves 

 to perfect skeletons, are certain other black-spotted varlets, 

 which we mention here for the sake of noticing; that their 



o 



spots, or dots, which are very shining, are raised above the sur- 

 face of their greenish-yellow skins, forming thus another sort 

 of shagreen to that which clothes some of the Sphinxes. This 

 ornamented apparel they are accustomed, on their last moult, 

 to exchange for a plain one, " as people," says Reaumur, 

 " when they advance in years, become usually more simple in 

 their dress than when they were young." Query, Did the old 

 ladies of the days of Reaumur display better taste than they 

 usually do at present ? The above-named caterpillars (called 

 pseudo or false ones) are distinguished from the true by 

 having sixteen prolegs, as well as six claws, and become in 

 due season not moths but saw-flies.* 



We have room for little more about the colouring of cater- 



* See Vignette. 



