HABITS OF EAST INDIAN INSECTS. 273 



only in size and in their food-plant. The little arrow-head- 

 shaped larva of Bomhyx Waringi, Teysm., which we have 

 just mentioned, is exactly like a diminutive Sphinx larva; 

 the larvae of the widely separated ^wa//?M5m Phidippus, Linn., 

 and Lasiocampa Vishnou, Guer., though of very peculiar 

 form, differ only in colour and food. Among the larvae of 

 L. Vishnon I once saw something which never occurred to me 

 at any other time: on the whole length of the back some 

 specimens (for this larva varies extremely in colour and mark- 

 ings) showed a beautiful mark, which appeared like a stripe 

 embroidered with white and yellow floss-silk, while there 

 was an abundance of white and yellow hairs along both sides 

 of the larva. Shortly before they changed into pupae the 

 white and yellow colour, both of the stripe and of ihe long 

 hair at the sides, changed to violet, without this being due to 

 moulting. 



The hairs of the larva of Miresa nitens, Walk., figured by 

 Horsfield as Setora niten.i, presented a still stranger appear- 

 ance. When I met with this very beautiful larva it was 

 completely covered with so-called spines: I counted eight 

 large and twenty-four small. After a few days it moulted, 

 without seeming to undergo any alteration in its external 

 appearance. A few days later it moulted again ; and now I 

 saw the spines changed into tufts of hairs, some of which 

 resembled stiff bristles, and others were more like pencils of 

 hairs. Three days later the hairs of these bristles united 

 again, so that they seemed to form stiff bristles as before the 

 moulting ; but three days later the hairs again divided, and 

 the previous shape of bristles and pencils came back. After 

 this the spiny shape did not return, but the same tufts of 

 hairs altered their shape daily, so that one day they resembled 

 bristles, and another pencils. And this continued till the 

 larva became a pupa. 



During my residence in the East Indies 1 busied myself 

 chiefly with Lepidoptera, and I cannot therefore say much 

 about insects of other orders. But I cannot refrain from 

 observing, though it is nothing new, how much stronger and 

 more conspicuous insect life appears in the tropics than 

 in temperate climates. The annoying pertinacity of the 

 flies — which always return, however often driven away — is 

 known to every inhabitant of the East Indies; and every 



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