CATERPILLARS. 85 



devouring appetite ; the other, the knowledge of constant 

 danger and the efforts to escape the eye of their teeming 

 foes. This they do in accordance with varied instincts 

 inherited from progenitors. 



Some will hide on 'the under side of a leaf, others will 

 eat into its substance, and establish themselves a domicile 

 between the outer and inner tissue, proceeding at once to 

 enlarge their house and to satisfy their appetites. Others, 

 on the approach of danger, will curl themselves up, and 

 drop to the ground, trusting to fortune to fall between two 

 clods of earth, but, in any case, shamming death until the 

 danger has, as they believe, passed away. Another kind, 

 a greyish-brown in colour, and rough and knobby of skin, 

 will stand upright, imitating so exactly the appearance of a 

 little bent twig, that the keenest eye would fail to detect the 

 difference ; while a great many caterpillars guard themselves 

 against unpleasant surprises by establishing themselves from 

 the first in a place of concealment, and there passing the 

 greater portion of their lives. When, as not unfrequently 

 happens, the chosen hiding-place is in the heart of a bud 

 just beginning to form, the results are naturally the death 

 of the flower, and extreme exasperation upon the part of 

 its owner. There is nothing pugnacious about the cater- 

 pillar, all its means of defence being more or less passive 

 in their character. A not inconsiderable section no sooner 

 leave the egg than they set to work to form themselves a 

 shelter by turning over the edge of the leaf, and fastening 

 it with silken threads, so as to form at once a house and a 

 hiding-place. Lastly, there are the caterpillars who live in 

 communities, and establish a rampart against their foes by 

 throwing round their dwelling-place a thick curtain of silken 



