328 Mr. W. M. Holmes oti Cossus lignipcnla. 



consideriug all things, they made a marvellous use of the 

 materials at their disposal ; that they were a hard-working 

 and industrious race, to whom we probably owe much, and that 

 they possessed an originality of design in their bronze ornaments 

 so good, that we are quite content in our boasted high state of art 

 and taste to copy the forms which they created. 



95. — On Cossus ligniperda. 

 By W. Murton Holmes. 

 (Read September 9th, 1891.) 



About two years ago, as I was walking in the public recreation 

 ground at Faversham, in Kent, the strong odour of the goat- 

 moth larva (so named from its supposed resemblance to the 

 odour of the he-goat) greeted my nostrils, and caused me to 

 endeavour to discover the spot from which it emanated. This 

 proved to be an Italian poplar, and, with the help of the 

 gardener, who brought a ladder, we found a large number of 

 the larvfe, in various stages of growth, under the bark. As, 

 however, none of them were full-grown, and I did not want the 

 trouble of keeping them for a year or two, I asked the gardener 

 to let them remain until the tree was cut down, which the 

 inroads of the caterpillars had rendered inevitable. Last autumn 

 I received from him, by post, a cardboard-box containing up- 

 wards of twenty of them, and the writhing mass that presented 

 itself when the box was opened was, to say the least, remarkable, 

 — so was the smell. Fortimately they had not been too long in 

 transit, as they had almost eaten tlieir way out. Had they 

 escaped whilst in the custody of the Post Office, the feeling and 

 exclamations of the officials, more especially of the lady clerks, 

 may be imagined but not described. There is some difficulty in 

 keeping them securely, owing to the facility with which they 

 escape from any ordinary box. I placed mine in a bell-glass 

 aquarium with a heavy glass cover, which answered perfectly. 

 I put in several pieces of decayed wood, and in the course of a 

 few days they had all gnawed their way inside. 



The caterpillars are by no means pleasant objects to look at, 

 or to handle. They are about three or four inches long, some- 

 what flattened, and with powerful jaws, and are of a mahogany 

 colour along the back, becoming gradually paler on the sides and 

 under surface, with a few hairs scattered over the body. Looked 

 at from a little distance, they appear like animated pieces of raw 



