446 



Marvels of Insect Life. 



black dots are scattered along the front edge of the fore-wings, and others form 

 a more or less indefinite oblique line extending from the tip to the hind-margin. 

 There are a few (number variable) small, black spots on the hind-wings also. The 

 hind-body is yellow with three rows of black spots. The caterpillar, wliich often 

 tries to help us get rid of our garden weeds, is a brown, hairy creature much like 

 that of the white ermine. It feeds upon all kinds of low-growing plants, spins 

 up in August or September, and passes the winter as a red-brown chrysalis, from 

 which the moth breaks out in June. 



One further species must be mentioned. This is the muslin-moth, ^ in which 

 the females alone have white wings, with six or seven black dots on each. The 

 smaller male is entirely of a smoky-brown colour, upon which the darker dots 

 are not very prominent. From this fact it is concluded that the muslin-moth 



is edible, and that the females, who expose them- 

 selves to view much more than the males, mimic 

 the inedible white ermine. 



The Wasp-Beetle. 



Among the beetles of the long-horn famih' - which 

 feed as grubs in timber is one that may frequentl}' be 

 seen in summer flying about flowers. Like others of its 

 family its body is long, slender, and straight-sided, its 

 legs and antennae are long, and its colouring is black 

 and bright yellow. The yellow is laid in narrow bands 

 across the black, and the superficial appearance pre- 

 sented is that of one of the smaller species of wasp. 

 The manner in which it mo\'es its long legs in walking 

 is very like the movements of a wasp, and it agitates 

 its antennae in precisely the same nervous manner as 

 the wasp does hers. There can be little doubt that this 

 close general resemblance to a wasp largely protects 

 the beetle from being eaten by birds, for it must be 

 remembered that the colouring of a wasp not merely 

 gives notice of the fact that it is dangerous to meddle with it on account of its stinging 

 powers, but that it is objectionable as food to most creatures at least. The strongly 

 contrasted black and yellow, or black and red, wherever found as the predominating 

 feature in the colouring of animals, may be held, prima facie, as presumptive evidence 

 that the creature so coloured is inedible, or at least unpalatable. Creatures so 

 coloured have the habit of boldly, sometimes ostentatiously, exposing themselves 

 to the view of the natural enemies of their kind, as tliough fully conscious that 

 the significance of such colouring is generally understood. Thus, the caterpillar of the 

 cinnabar-moth, conspicuously coloured in alternate rings of orange and black, 

 feeds openly all day in crowds on the ragwort, not troubling to hide itself under the 

 leaves. The cinnabar-moth itself, simply coloured in black and crimson, flies 

 lazily in sunshine, and the somewhat similarly ornamented burnet-moths sit on 

 flowers in company as though there were no such creatures as Insect-eating birds. 



' Diiijiluira mendica. ^ Ccrambycidae. 



Photo by] [E. Step. F.L.S. 



Wasp-Beetle. 



Conspicuously banded with bright yellow 

 on a black ground and with a globular fore- 

 body, this beetle, when walking on flowers 

 and leaves, is frequently mistaken for a 

 wasp. Twice the natural size. 



