76 ON SOME LEPIDOPTEROUS LARV^ 



long and slender as a rule, rest motionless for considerable 

 periods with their bodies at an angle from the branch to 

 which they adhere by their hind claspers, the great strain 

 caused by assuming this attitude being met by their spin- 

 ning a thread of silk, one end of which is attached to the 

 branch whilst the other is held by the larva. In this way 

 they nearly always rest when not feeding, and the resem- 

 blance to a twig is often so complete as to deceive even 

 a careful searcher. 



To add to their great general resemblance to twigs, the 

 bodies of these caterpillars are often diversified by rough 

 warty humps or excrescences, whilst their colour is usually 

 of some shade of brown grey or green. The larva of the 

 large Emerald Moth {Geometi'a papilionaria) resembles the 

 catkins of the birch trees on which it feeds, and is either 

 green or brown, two colours which are represented by the 

 catkins of the tree in their younger or more advanced 

 stages. 



Next we have the larva of a South American butterfly 

 belonging to the Nymphaline genus, Anma^ described by 

 Wilhelm Muller, which makes its surroundings resemble 

 itself. In feeding it leaves certain irregular pieces of leaf 

 attached to the mid-rib by little stalks ; these in some 

 degree bear a resemblance to the body of the larva, which is 

 green above and dark beneath, and which has considerable 

 likeness to a piece of irregularly eaten leaf. 



On one occasion I had the pleasure of rearing a dozen 

 caterpillars of Macro glossa fuciformis^ which I fed upon 

 a plant of honeysuckle growing in a pot in a large larva- 

 breeding cage. These pretty bright green larvae closely 

 resembled the smaller longitudinally folded leaves of their 

 food-plant, and it was only with the greatest difficulty that 

 they could be seen, though the larva apart from the leaves 



