CHAP. V. 



WEAPONS OF INSECTS. 



fluid to a considerable distance, which,, if it enter the 

 eyes, gives acute, but not lasting, pain. * 



(179.) We may now pass on to the arms or weapons 

 assigned to insects. The two branches or tails, above 

 mentioned, of the puss moth come under this de- 

 nomination ; for the caterpillar, upon being irritated, 

 lashes its sides, as with a whip, and thus effectually 

 drives away those ichneumons, or parasitic Hymenop- 

 tera, which seek to deposit their eggs in its skin. Most 

 of the typical thrysanuriform caterpillars have the head 

 furnished with horns or spiny processes, analogous to 

 the quadrupeds (Ungulata) and the birds (Buceridce) 

 which they represent. Lewin describes a caterpillar of 

 Australia, which inflicts very painful and venomous 

 wounds, by means of bunches 

 w ^ / ^ji& of little stings, which are darted 

 ^fc^H fort h fr m the tubercles placed 

 W on the back. The whole of the 

 ^Sfi| Sj Theclidce (fig. 54.), or hair- 



^IIM IPBV streak butterflies, furnished 

 ^JBL^^f with tails on their posterior 

 ^ wings, keep these processes in 



constant tnotion when the in- 

 sect itself is at rest, a fact 

 we observed in Brazil, in 1815. 

 These tails, as Mr. Kirby well 

 observes, resemble antennae, 

 so that, at first sight, the in- 

 sect appears to have a head at each extremity ; a 

 deception which is much increased by an eye-like 

 spot at the base of these processes. It is thus, in 

 all probability, that these insects perplex or alarm 

 their assailants. Of the uses of those singular horn- 

 like spines on the head and thorax of many coleop- 

 terous insects, particularly those of the Dynastida 

 MacLeay, we are in total ignorance. They are proba-r 

 bly intended, among other things, to point out their 

 analogy to the ruminating quadrupeds- and even the 



Int. to Ent. vol. ii. p. 252. 



