THE PUSS MOTH. 101 



ber when coming home once in the evening, seeing a 

 beetle running across the road, and pouncing upon it 

 as my lawful prey, I picked it up, and while holding 

 it in the twilight between my eyes and the sky to 

 look at it I suddenly received a discharge below the 

 eye that caused for the minute some little amount of 

 pain, and I parted with the beetle much sooner than 

 I had intended. Our caterpillar sends the fluid from 

 a transverse slit just beneath the chin, or beneath 

 where it would be if he had one. It is said in some 

 books to lose this power in captivity, but this is not 

 always the case. In connexion with the tail I ought 

 to have mentioned that you generally find the full- 

 grown caterpillars possessing merely the stumps, 

 and no scarlet thread is ever produced. It might be 

 thought perhaps that this was the effect of old age, 

 and was similar to creatures of another class grow- 

 ing bald or losing their teeth with advancing years. 

 Let me assure you that such is not the case. For 

 though the larva itself may appear old we must 

 remember that it has yet to go through a second life, 

 and can, therefore, be scarcely considered in the sere 

 and yellow leaf. The mystery is solved by watching 

 the animal in captivity, when it will be seen that if 

 any one caterpillar can possibly catch another asleep 

 or otherwise off his guard he will assuredly nibble 

 off his tail. They eat each other's tails, and that 

 purely out of choice, for they do it in the presence 

 of an abundance of fresh food. I believe, however, 

 they do their utmost to prevent others returning the 

 compliment. Monkeys also are fond of tail ends, 

 but then they nibble their own, 



When about six or seven weeks old the larva of 



