bo ON SOME LEPIDOPTEEOUS LAEV^. 



Colours of Animals he mentions that he once offered a cater- 

 pillar of the Large Elephant Moth to a green lizard, which 

 at first was evidently suspicious, and yet afraid to attack the 

 larva, which placed itself in its terrifying attitude. The 

 lizard kept boldly advancing and then retreating in fright, 

 but at each advance approached a little nearer. At length 

 it ventured to gently bite the head, then swiftly retired; 

 but finding there was no retaliation again advanced and 

 gave a harder bite. At last it appeared satisfied that the 

 whole thing was a fraud, and devoured the larva. He had 

 often given the same lizard equally large hawk-moth cater- 

 pillars of other species, which were always doomed without 

 ceremony. He says he never saw a lizard behave with such 

 caution as on this occasion. Prof. Weismann found that 

 fowls were much awed by the appearance of this larva, and 

 that on placing one in a seed-trough, small birds (sparrows 

 and chaffinches) were effectually kept off by it. 



If we carefully examine the boughs of black poplar or 

 willow trees in July and August, we may chance to find 

 the large and remarkable larva of the Puss Moth {Cerura 

 vinula). This is one of the most grotesque and singular 

 of our larvae, and is well worthy of our consideration. I 

 regret that it is an exceptionally difficult larva to preserve, 

 and my specimens do not give any idea of the beauty of 

 colour it possesses when living. 



On one occasion I had the pleasure of rearing a brood of 

 these caterpillars from the egg, and found them very easy 

 to breed and interesting to observe. The young larvee are 

 most peculiar objects when they emerge from the egg ; 

 deep black, having absurdly long, forked tails, which they 

 carry almost erect ; their heads are broad, and have angular 

 points at the sides, almost like pointed ears — in fact, when 

 they drew their tails together, as they sometimes did, they 



