STATES OF INSECTS. (Larva.) 177 
another moth which feeds upon the Papaw-tree (Carica 
Papaya) with similar hairs?. But the most remarkable 
larva for the shape of its hairs is that of Anthrenus Mu- 
seorum, the little pest of our cabinets, which I noticed 
in a former letter”. All the hairs of its body are rough 
with minute points; but those of six diverging long tufts 
or aigrettes, laid obliquely on the anal extremity of the 
body, which the animal when alarmed erects as a porcu- 
pine does its quills, are of a most singular structure: 
every hair is composed of a series of little conical pieces, 
placed end to end, the point of which is directed towards 
the origin of each hair, which is terminated at the other 
extremity by a long and large conical mass, resembling 
somewhat the head of a pike°. 
Besides the one lately mentioned, other caterpillars 
are rendered striking by the brilliant colour of the tu- 
bercles from which their hairs emerge. A remarkable 
instance of this is the thick large caterpillar of one of the 
Bombycide which feeds upon the Pszdium pyriferum, or 
white Guava, figured by Madame Merian. ‘This cater- 
pillar, which is white, with transverse black stripes, and 
which has two singular long converging curved bunches 
of hairs near the tail, is splendidly adorned on each side 
with fifty red tubercles, shining like coral, from which 
proceed six or seven long diverging hairs. Leeuwen- 
hoek took these tubercles for eyes*. Another figured 
by the same lady, who mistakes it, with her usual inac- 
curacy, for the larva of a Lygeus, F., and which seems by 
her description to be between the onzsciform and limaci- 
\ 
* Merian Ins. Surinam. t. Ix. » ‘See above, Vol. I. p. 240. 
* De Geer iv. 207. t. viii. f. 4—6. 
4 Ins. Sur. t. xix. right-hand caterpillar. 
VOL, III. N 
