MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 251 



upon acrid plants, the species of crowfoot or Rcmun- 

 culifs, it is probable that this fluid partakes of the na- 

 ture of their food and is very acrimonious — and thus 

 may put to flight its insect assailants or the birds, from 

 neither of which it could otherwise escape, being- a very 

 sjow and sluggish and at the same time very conspi- 

 cuous animal. Another beetle (Pimelia collaris, F.)* 

 has likewise this faculty. — The lady-bird, we know, 

 has been recommended as a cure for the tooth-ache. 

 This idea may have taken its rise from a secretion of 

 this kind being noticed upon it. I have observed that 

 one species {Coccinella bipunctaia, L.) when taken 

 ejects from its joints a yellow fluid which yields a pow- 

 erful but not agreeable scent of opium. — Asilus crabro- 

 niformis, L., a dipterous insect, once wlien I took it, 

 emitted a white milky fluid from its proboscis, the joints 

 of the legs and abdomen, and the anus. — The common 

 scorpion-fly, likewise, upon the same occasion ejects 

 from its proboscis a brown and fetid drop^. Some in- 

 sects have peculiar organs from which their fluids issue, 

 or are ejaculated. Thus, the larvae of saw-flies when 

 taken into the hand cover themselves with drops, ex- 

 uding from all parts of their body, of an unpleasant 

 penetrating scent *^. Tliat of Tcnthralo lutea, L. of the 

 same tribe, from a small hole just above each spiracle, 

 syringes a similar fluid in horizontal jets of the diame- 

 ter of a thread, sometimes to tlie distance of more than 

 a foot". — The caterpillar of the great emperor moth 

 {Bombyx Pavonia major, F., Sulurnia Pj/ri, Schrank) 



^ Fnb. Ent. Syst. Em. i. 101. 26. In Sij»L Ehulh. (i. 135. 5.) it is mads 

 an Akis, 



" De Geer, ii, TS-J. " ilcauinin-, v. 9G. * De Geer, ii. 937— 



