LOBSTER MOTH. 93 



ently coloured. It follows the example of the 

 Puss larva in spinning a cocoon on the bark of 

 the tree upon which it feeds, but, instead of 

 making a projecting cocoon, it prefers to find a 

 crevice in the bark into which it can creep and 

 fill up the crevice nearly level with the rest of 

 the bark, so that the cocoon is even more diffi- 

 cult of discovery than that of the Puss Moth. 



Two other species of Kitten Moth are known, 

 the Poplar Kitten and the Alder Kitten. They 

 all appear at the beginning of summer. 



OUR next insect, though its appearance has 

 nothing remarkable about it in the perfect state, 

 is, when a larva, one of the strangest-looking 

 creatures that can be imagined, far surpassing in 

 this respect even the Puss and Kitten larvae. 

 This is the LOBSTER MOTH (Stauropus fagi\ 

 which is shown on Plate VII. fig. 7. 



The popular name of this insect is derived 

 from, the extraordinary shape of the caterpillar, 

 which is fancifully thought to bear some re- 

 semblance to a lobster. A figure of this most 

 grotesque larva is here given. 



Putting aside the general shape of the larva, 

 the peculiarity which makes it so unlike the 

 generality of caterpillars is the extreme length of 



