248 



MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



and was surprised to hear him immediately cry out as 

 if hurt; repeating- the experiment with another of his 

 boys, he complained of its making' him smart : upon this 

 he touched himself with it, and it caused as much pain 

 as if, after shaving-, he had rubbed his face with spirits 

 of wine. This he observed was not invariably the 

 case with this beetle, its saliva at otlier times being^ 

 harmless. Hence he conjectures that its caustic na- 

 ture, in the instance here recorded, miglit arise from 

 its food ; which he had reason to think had at that time 

 been the electric centipede ( Scolopendra elect rica^ L.). — 

 L<esser having- once touched the anal horn of the cater- 

 pillar of some sphinx, suddenly turning its head round, 

 it vomited upon his hand a quantity of green, viscous, 

 and very fetid fluid, which, though he washed it fre- 

 quently with soap and fumed it with sulphur, infected 

 it for two days'*. — Lister relates that he saw a spi- 

 der, when upon being provoked it attempted to bite, 

 emit several times small drops of very clear fluid''. — 

 Mr. Briggs observed a caterpillar caught in the web 

 of one of our largest spiders, by means of a fluid which 

 it sent forth entirely dissolve the great breadth of 

 threads with which the latter endeavoured to envelop 

 it, as fast as produced, till the spider appeared qnite 

 exhausted *". — The caterpillars also of a particular tribe 

 pf saw-flies, remarkable for the beautiful pennated an- 



** Insect. Theol. i. 281. note G. " De Jrancis 9.1. 



" This gentleman is of opinion that spidprs possess the means of re- 

 djssolving their webs. He observed one, when its net was broken, run up 

 its thread, and gathering a considerable mass of tiie web into a ball, sud« 

 denly dissolve it with fluid. He also observes, that when winding up a, 

 powerful prey, a spider can form its threads into a broad sheet. 



