The Bionomics of South African Insects. 401 



of Lepidoptera, has also shown specimens of the larva 

 to the country-folk, and ascertained that it was what they 

 call the " Connagh," so that we are not dependent for the 

 identification upon the loose descriptions of ignorant 

 and excited people. She states that there are two models 

 of the "Connagh" in the Dublin Museum "studded with 

 coloured stones, and supposed to have been used as 

 charms." * 



Miss Eleanor A.Ormerod in her Eleventh Report, for 1887 

 (p. 126), also shows that this larva is looked upon "at least 

 in one district in Ireland as the cause of murrain in cattle." 

 Thus " In the course of last year Miss Fleming, writing 

 from Derry Lea, Monasterevan, Co. Kildare, Ireland, men- 

 tioned : — ' There is a very large caterpillar sometimes 

 found here (I have seen it four inches long), which is said 

 by popular voice to give the disease called " murrain " 

 when licked or swallowed by a cow. The people call this 

 creeping thing a Murrain Worm,'" On Aug. 7, 1887, 

 Miss Fleming sent a specimen which proved to be the 

 larva of C. el^oeiior. Another specimen was sent on Aug. 

 20, 1887, to Miss Ormerod,by Mr. N. Richardson, from the 

 Estate Office, Castle Comer, Co. Kilkenny. 



In the autumn of 1898 (Twenty-second Report, for 

 1898, p. 72) Miss Ormerod received from Mr. Thomas 

 Wade, of Newcastle-West, Co. Limerick, an account of the 

 disease of a cow which " the farmers, not only here, but 

 all over Munster, seem convinced ... is caused by ' a 

 worm.' " Although Mr. Wade suggests that they refer to 

 " a lizard, or something akin to it," it is almost certain that 

 we have here anothei- case of the same superstition. 



Mr. G. H. Carpenter, B.Sc, F.E.S., of the Science and 

 Art Museum, Dublin, informs me that in 1901 a police- 

 constable in Co. Mayo forwarded a larva of elpenor as 

 "a rare kind of reptile," and that a similar description 

 has been given to him by other country corresponclents. 

 The evidence of alarm and superstitious dread is however 

 of greater significance than the employment of a word 

 which is so often used inaccurately. 



* Mr. Carpenter informs me that the cylindrical form of these 

 models and the large size of the caudal horn on one of them suggest 

 Acherontia rather than Choerocampa. 



TRANS. ENT. SOC. LOND. 1902. — PART III. (NOV.) 27 



