MEANS OF DEFENCE OP INSECTS. 253 



the Wisdom has endowed these busy tribes, are those 

 limbs or weapons with which they are furnished. The 

 insect lately mentioned, the puss-moth, besides the 

 syringes just described, is remarkable for its singular 

 forked tail, entirely dissimilar to the anal termination 

 of the abdomen of most other caterpillars. This tail 

 is composed of two long cylindrical tubes moveable 

 at their base, and beset with a great number of short 

 stiff spines. When the animal walks, the two branches 

 of the tail are separated from each other, and at every 

 step are lowered so as to touch the plane of position ; 

 hence we may conclude that they assist it in this mo- 

 tion and supply the place of hind legs. If you touch 

 or otherwise incommode it, from each of the above 

 branches there issues a long, cylindrical, slender, 

 fleshy, and very flexible organ of a rose colour, to 

 which the caterpillar can give every imaginable curve 

 ©r inflexion, causing it sometimes to assume even a 

 spiral form. It enters the tube, or issues from it, in the 

 same manner as the horns of snails or slugs. These 

 tails form a kind of double whip, the tubes represent- 

 ing the handle, and the horns the thong or lash, 

 with which the animal drives away the ichneumons 

 and flies that attempt to settle upon it. Touch any 

 part of the body, and immediately one or both the horns 

 will appear and be extended ; and the animal will, as 

 it were, lash the spot where it feels that you incom- 

 mode it. De Geer, from whom this account is taken, 

 says that this caterpillar will bite very sharply^. — 

 kSevelal larvas of butterflies, distinguished at their 

 head by a semicoronet of strong spines, figured by 



^ De Geer, i.St?— 



