NOTES ON A CATERPILLAR FARM. 279 



In regard to the management of stock, experience taught us four 

 great canons : 1, Never handle a specimen ; 2, keep the species 

 distinct ; 3, diet each specimen only on the plant on which it was 

 found ; and 4, when a caterpillar leaves its food-plant, leave it 

 alone. 



1 . Even the gentlest handling of a caterpillar or chrysalis, result- 

 ing in no apparent injury at the time, we found was often followed, 

 especially in the larger sorts, by a malformation or imperfect deve- 

 lopment of the imago. Sometimes the ill-consequences declared 

 themselves sooner or more disastrously, and the caterpillar, though 

 showing no external marks of ill-treatment, sickened and died. la 

 one notable instance, a very fine specimen, tenderly picked off a 

 plant by a servant with his finger and thumb, and carefully brought 

 upstairs in his closed fist, so resented the liberty, that, as graphi- 

 cally described by a lady friend, " it fermented and burst" within 

 twenty-four hours. A specimen should be collected by carefully pick- 

 ing the twig on which it is found and transferring both together 

 to the box. Where this is impossible, and in the rare instances in 

 which it is necessary to move a caterpillar or chrysalis in the cage, 

 it should be lifted by means of a leaf, very gently pushed under it, 

 and mot raised until the insect is wholly on it. When the food and 

 water are changed, which should be daily if possible, the caterpillars 

 must not be forcibly transferred to the new leaves. If any leaf on 

 which a caterpillar is engaged be picked off the old sprig and gently 

 placed on the new, the caterpillar will soon of its own accord leave 

 the stale leaf for the fresh. 



2. Provided they get food enough, any number of individuals of 

 the same species apparently will dwell together in harmony on the 

 same sprig. But with individuals of different species the case is 

 otherwise. In confinement, the members of some species seem to 

 resent the mere neighbourhood of those of another in a manner almost 

 human. We had the caterpillar of the " death's-head " moth above- 

 mentioned on a Caladium leaf, and two caterpillars of Banais chry- 

 sippus on a sprig of Caloiropis gigantea in the same vase. The 

 "death's-head," wishing to change his skin, left his food plant, as the 

 manner of many caterpillars is at such times, and tried to make his 

 way through his neighbour's territory. But the Danaides, holding 

 views as pronounced as those of any English game-preserving squire 

 on the rights of property and the iniquity of trespass, set on the 

 intruder, and so belaboured him that we were obliged to put hi> 



