146 



Marvels of Insect Life, 



originally contained being represented by dust and a few glittering scales. The 

 beetle grubs have long consumed everything that was consumable. Under such 

 circumstances they can fast for a long period, casting their skins and slowly becoming 

 smaller. If opportunity offers they will eat each other, but there are always 

 survivors waiting for more food to come to them, or for an opportunitv to escape 

 to pastures new. When at length full grown the grub turns to a chrysalis, the 

 larval skin merely splitting down the back to reveal the chrysalis within ; and 

 in due course the tinv beetle emerges. 



^% 





Clearwings. 



In our remarks upon the hawk-moths we have mentioned two near relatives of 

 the humming-bird hawk-moth that shake the majority of the scales from their 



wings in their first flight, and thereafter 

 present a close resemblance to bees. These 

 bee hawk-moths do not exhaust the 

 examples our fauna can afford of moths 

 assuming a likeness to stinging Insects, and 

 thereby escaping the destructive attentions, 

 of at least some of their natural enemies. 

 At the other end of the scale of classification 

 is the family of the clearwings,^ so called 

 because in nearly all cases the hind-wings 

 are transparent and in many cases the fore- 

 wings also, except for a marginal band 

 covered with scales. Some of these remark- 

 able moths shed their scales whilst they 

 are in the chrysalis stage, others soon after 

 they have emerged, but in some species the 

 scales remain, having been rendered trans- 

 parent to effect the same result. Fanciful 

 names have been given to these moths by 

 entomologists, indicating a definite likeness 

 to a particular species of the bee or fly 

 orders ; but in very few cases is this so, though there is in most of them a startling 

 general likeness to an Insect that can defend itself if attacked. The best of these 

 counterfeit presentments among our native species are afforded by the hornet-moth - 

 and the lunar hornet-moth,^ though they do not resemble hornets, but wasps. The 

 hind-body in both species is marked with alternate bands of black and light yellow, 

 whereas the lighter bands on the hornet are more brown than yellow. But the pro- 

 tective value of the likeness is not lessened because their sponsors have given them 

 misleading names. There arc, it is true, a few naturalists who decline to receive the 

 modern theory of mimetic resemblance for the protection of certain species ; and 

 these tell us that the resemblances are purely accidental. But with the enormous 

 volume of evidence now accumulated it is harder to accept their view than the views 

 of Bates, Miiller, and Poulton. 



Photos bv] 



The 



[£. step, F.L.S. 



Museum -Beetle. 



The four stages of this insidious foe of the naturalist. To the 

 left are the eggs and newly hatched grubs feeding upon the 

 dried body of a wasp. In spite of its bad habits, the grub is 

 rather pretty in its adornment of httle brushes and in its 

 movements. The chrysalis is contained in the split skin of the 

 full-grown grub, which serves it in place of a cocoon. The 

 figures are all four times the natural size. 



^ Sesiidac. 



Trochiliuin ajiiformis. 



^ T. crahroniformis 



