London Insects. 145 



the level at least of an ordinary man's nose, have 

 been long surrendered to Earwigs and Woodlice. 

 The French naturalist, Lyonet, who dissected a Goat 

 Moth Caterpillar, counted as many as 4,061 distinct 

 muscles, of which 228 were in the head. One could 

 have formed a pretty fair idea, without any such 

 detailed information, of the muscular power necessary 

 in the fore-quarters to enable a Grub to work his way 

 through solid timber as easily as if it were so much 

 cheese ; and the figures are chiefly interesting, as an 

 instance of the laborious minuteness of the work of 

 many entomologists. " In the human subject," add 

 Messrs Kirby and Spence, from whom the figures 

 are taken at second hand, " only 529 have been 

 counted, so that this minute animal has 3,532 muscles 

 more than the ' lord of creation.' " The smell of a 

 Goat Moth is an instance of the power of associa- 

 tion to sweeten the disagreeables of life. Judged on 

 its own merits it is very nasty indeed, but it may be 

 charged with recollections making a whiff as welcome 

 as the scent of mignonette, which now meets us 

 pleasantly at every turn in the park. Such amiable 

 day dreams are, though, if too freely indulged in, 

 liable to a rude awakening. It is not an unheard-of 

 thing for ladies who have been carried back for a 

 long summer afternoon to scenes of childhood, to 

 find, on packing up their sketches, that the source 

 of the foetid smell in the oak wood, in which the 

 charm had lain, was not, as they had fondly believed 

 it, a wood-witch fungus, but a dead rabbit unnoticed 

 in the fern beside them. 



A Caterpillar in a solid tree, asking no better food 

 or bed than the wood, might not unreasonably flatter 

 himself that he was safe from all attack ; but if he 

 were to do so he would be very much mistaken. 



