856 MR. NELSON ANNANDALE ON THE [Dec. 4, 
mentioned differs but little in essentials from that of the Sphinx 
larve, which bring into prominence the eye-like markings on their 
sides when alarmed, and thus seem to mimic small reptiles or 
mammals. One such caterpillar’ is not uncommon in Nawncehik and 
Patalung during April. It feeds ona species of Caladium? growing 
in marshy localities, and is generally found on the underside of 
the broad leaves, in the shadow of which it may easily be mistaken 
for a small gecko which has lost its tail; though geckos do not 
live in the marshes, and though its eye-spots are perfectly round, 
more like the eyes of a snake than those of a gecko in the daytime. 
In some cases structures which are alarming at one stage of an 
animal’s existence may be mimetic or protective at another. The 
case of the larva of our English Lobster Moth (Stauropus fagi)’, 
which in its youth is said to mimic an ant, is so well known that 
I need ouly refer to it. In lower Siam there is a common cater- 
pillar, of what family it is impossible to say, which has a series of 
curious long, flattened processes rising in three rows froin the 
dorsal surface of the anterior part of the body. When the animal is 
walking these structures are kept in constant motion. They may be 
supposed to alarm its enemies by their movements, and certainly 
they give the full-grown caterpillar no aid by concealing it or by 
making it resemble any otheranimal. But 1 have been completely 
deceived by a very young specimen of this form. It was hanging 
by a thread from a tree, and looked so extremely spider-like as 
it hung, that I captured it to add to our collection of spiders. 
Nor was I undeceived before the insect was in my spirit-tube ; 
for in the Malay jungle there are many Araneids with elongated 
abdomens. 
An animal which is habitually of an alarming appearance may 
even lose this appearance periodically. At Aring, one afternoon 
in the beginning of September, a caterpillar nearly allied to 
Stauropus fagi, and probably belonging to the same genus, came 
under my notice. When first I saw it I mistook it for a bird’s 
dropping. It was seated on the edge of a leaf of Melastoma 
polyanthum, with the anterior and posterior regions of its body bent 
towards one another, with the true legs folded together upon the 
under surface of the thorax, and the abdominal feet firmly 
clutching the edge of the leaf. The body was bent over so that 
one side lay on the upper surface of the leaf, parallel to the 
mid-rib. The insect was motionless. Its skin was smooth and 
shiny; intense black in colour, except for some vivid white 
markings about the middle of the bedy. The likeness to a bird’s 
dropping was not exact, because these white markings were at the 
} The Malays do not appear to have any superstitious dread of this cater- 
pillar, such as is felt by the Irish for that of the Elephant Hawk Moth 
(Cherocampa elpenor), a form to which it bears a close resemblance. For the 
Trish beliefs with regard to the caterpillar, see Miss Ormerod’s Reports, 1898, 
. 72-73. 
PE The “ Kladi mabok” or Sick Caladium, so called because, unlike some other 
species, it is inedible. 
8 See Poulton, Journ, Linn. Soe., Zool. xxvi. pl. 40, and ‘Colours of Animals.’ 
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