Ixx LLOYD'S NATURAL HISTORY. 



mates, and where they touch the naked skin they leave an in- 

 tolerable itching behind.* Besides, they dirty the white walls 

 of the rooms everywhere by firmly attaching to them quanti- 

 ties of eggs covered with yellow down.f 



" I now turn to caterpillars. I have often been surprised that 

 in the East Indies, where there is so great a variety of Butter- 

 flies, so few caterpillars should be met with. My observations 

 lead me to think that this is to be ascribed to the circumstance 

 that probably a large portion of the Indian larvae, as is the case 

 with some in the Temperate Zones, avoid the light and heat of 

 the day in the ground, and only visit the plants on which they 

 feed at night ; besides, as is also the case with tropical as com- 

 pared with temperate plants, very few seem to be gregarious, 

 at least I never found a great number of larvae together, ex- 

 cept those of Bombya waring^ Teysm., a number of whose 

 larvae I once met with on a young Ficus benjaminia^ Linn.J 



" Among the larvae which I had an opportunity of observing I 

 noticed the important fact, long known in Europe, that some 

 species seem to desert the plants on which their species origi- 

 nally fed, for imported plants, just as in the Netherlands the 

 larvae of Acherontia atropos, Linn., now seem to live by pre- 

 ference on the potato-plant, which was introduced from 

 America, and cannot be excluded from it, so we find the very 

 common larva of the equally common Butterfly, Papilio aga- 

 memnon t Linn., both in Batavia and South-west Celebes, 



* In the case of the European Processionary Caterpillars, which possess 

 the worst urticating properties of any in this quarter of the globe, it is 

 also said that the hairs of the Moths, which they produce, are irritating. 

 It would be interesting to know if the larva of M. Pieper's Scirpo- 

 phaga are also urticating. 



t This looks as if the Moth was not a Scirpophaga, but one of the smaller 

 Liparida.y a family which includes many highly urticating species. 



J The caterpillars of several of the large Saturniidce live gregariously 

 on trees in Asia and Africa ; and those of an African genus, Anaphe t 

 of somewhat oubtful position, and its allies are also gregarious. 



