188 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



Sliould one of those hairy caterpillars, when feediiijj 

 near the top of a plant, be disturbed or alarmed, it 

 instantly coils itself up into a ball and drops among 

 the grass. Here it is not only difficult to discover, 

 but equally so to lay hold of it; for the pliancy and 

 sinoothness of the hair causes it to slip through the 

 fingers as readily almost as quicksilver. The grub 

 of the museum-beetle {Anthreiius Museorum, Fabr.), 

 the pest of our cabinets, affords another example of 

 the same circumstance, being covered with tufts of 

 diverging hairs which cause it to glide through 

 the fingers as if they had been oiled. The six long 

 tufts at the tail, which it can erect at pleasure, are 

 composed of hairs, which rise from a bulb of the 

 form of a halberd, and are curiously jointed with 

 cones through their whole extent. The bead-wood- 

 louse {Annadillo vulgarifi, Cuvier), though not 

 furnished with hairs, rolls itself up into a round ball, 

 trusting to the fine polish of its back for escape, and 

 to its hardness for defence. '' One of our maid-ser- 

 vants," sajs Swammerdam, "once found a number 

 of these wood-lice in the garden contracted into 

 round balls, and thinking she had found a kind of 

 coral beads, she began to put them one after another 

 on a thread ; it soon happened that the littl^ crea- 

 tures, being obliged to throw off the mask, resumed 

 their motions : on seeing which, she was so greatly 

 astonished, that she flung down both them and the 

 tliread in great haste, crying out, and running 

 away *."' 



The hairs with which the caterpillars of some of 

 our finest native butterflies are furnished are some- 

 what of the nature of bristles or thorns, being hard, 

 inflexible, and sharply pointed. This is the case with 

 the caterpillars of all the fan-winged butterflies 

 {Vanessee). We have alluded to that of the pea- 



♦ *wammerdam, pt. i. p. 174 



