INSECT ODDITIES. 257 



It thus comes about that, on arriving at its adult state, this caterpillar carries with 

 it an accumulation of five or six of its discarded head-masks; the bizarre appear- 

 ance thus presented is grotesquely suggestive of the old drawings of the Jew pedlar, 

 with his stock-in-trade pile of battered hats. The most characteristic illustration 

 of the singular aspect of this much be-hatted caterpillar is afforded by Fig. 22, 

 where it is drawn as seen eating its way through a leaf. On preparing 

 for the chrysalis stage and the renouncement of the pomps and vanities of its 

 hitherto earth-bound vegetative existence, the caterpillar weaves an ovate silken 

 cocoon, on the outer wall of which, as shown in Fig. 23, it jauntily plants its 

 ultimately discarded hat pile. In the cocoon here figured, the fabricator, being of an 

 evidently aesthetic turn of mind, has gnawed off and interwoven with its substance 

 fragments of the coloured lining of the box in which it was confined. 



The somewhat silhouette-patterned border illustration reproduced on the first 

 page of this Chapter, while introduced primarily for decorative purposes, claims brief 

 explanation. It represents the twig-attached pupee or chrysalides and newly-emerged 

 imagos of one of the many butterflies belonging to the Pieridae family common to 

 Australia. The particular species is apparently identical with, or near to, .Belenois 

 Clytie, and notable for its gregarious habits. The three chrysalis-covered sprays 

 here photographically reproduced from life, represent but a very small fraction of the 

 mass from which they were originally gathered in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens. 



Availing ourselves of the licence sanctioned by the Entomological Society, which 

 admits Spiders provisionally and by courtesy to the rank of Insects, the introduction 

 of some notable " oddities " is permitted. Figs. 5 to 15, in Chromo-Plate IX., 

 previously quoted, portrays a few of these spider types, remarkable either for their 

 individual form or colour, or for the singularity of their architectural products. 

 Some of these can, indeed, claim distinction on both counts. Fig. 5 presents, 

 in its external contour, but little to distinguish it from the ordinary garden spiders 

 of the genus Epeira, but, at the same time, may be described as being of a some- 

 what flattened, obovate shape. Colour, however, here comes in, and plays a part 

 that, in conjunction with its environments, invests this Arachnid with unique interest. 

 The ground tint of this spider, as shown in the illustration, is a delicate lilac, with 

 individually variable shadings. Superimposed on this, near the centre of the body, 

 are two smooth, slightly elevated, pale yellow, circular, eye-like spots. 



Taken in conjunction with the flattened obovate body, the entire organism, 



with the relatively small cephalothorax and limbs turned in an opposite direction, 

 KK 



