NOCTUAS. 



245 



and, when laid in confinement, are 

 .inged in a perfectly straight, line ; they 

 hatched in October; the little CATER- 

 LLAB, on leaving the egg-shell, being per- 

 ctly black and very hairy : they appear to 

 fbernate in the crevices of the stone while 

 ill extremely small, but in the following 

 [arch or February, or even the end of 

 Fanuary, if the weather happen to be wet and 

 mild, they again begin to feed : each then 

 constructs a new house for himself, a kind of 

 cocoon made of silk and particles of earth, 

 mortar, or stone ; this cocoon has little resem- 

 blance to the usual formula adopted by cater- 

 pillars when preparing for pupation, but is 

 very like the blister we occasionally see on 

 paint ; while tenanted, it is closed at both 

 extremities, just as though the occupant had 

 shut himself up to undergo pupation ; in 

 the night or early morning, more especially 

 in wet weather, he gnaws an opening at one 

 end of his dwelling-place, comes completely 

 t, and feeds on the lichen ; but during the 

 reater part of the day, and indeed during the 

 light also in very dry weather, he remains 

 lut up in his house : in moist weather, after 

 laking a copious meal on the saturated and 

 swollen lichen, each caterpillar seeks his 

 jcustomed shelter, always carefully fastening 

 le door, or, in other words, spinning up the 

 opening ; but it is curious, and rather opposed 

 to the oidinary habits of insects in this re- 

 spect, that, as a general rule, each caterpillar 

 is totally careless whether he return to his 

 own dwelling-place, or to that of some friend 

 or relation : he will, without a moment's hesi- 

 tation, coolly possess himself of any tenement 

 he finds unoccupied, and carefully closing the 

 entrance, maintain his position against all 

 coiners ; supposing, however, that the tene- 

 ment he examines with a view of taking pos- 

 session, be already occupied, he never pre- 

 sumes to intrude, never thinks of contesting 

 the point, but continues to wander about on 

 the look-out for a house until he finds one 

 unoccupied : an occupied cell is invariably 

 closed, so that when you find one open, you 

 may at once conclude it is an empty house ; 

 in no instance do two caterpillars attempt to 



occupy the same dwelling as tenants in com- 

 mon. Should any difficulty arise in finding 

 an empty house, which not unfrequently 

 happens, the caterpillar sets to work in the 

 most contented manner to construct one, and 

 probably before long is as comfortably housed 

 as any of his friends. I have said that in dry 

 weather these caterpillars remain sealed up in 

 their domiciles, and when this continues for 

 long, they appear to suffer greatly from lack of 

 food for if, after a long continuance of 

 drought, the cocoon be forcibly opened, the 

 caterpillar is found in a very shrivelled and 

 atrophied state, with its head dispropor- 

 tionately large and conspicuous. When full- 

 fed, which is about the end of May, it has a 

 limp and flaccid character very similar to that 

 of a caterpillar that has been ichneumoned ; 

 it neither feigns death, nor rolls in a ring 

 when disturbed or annoyed, as probably 

 the only protection it seeks or requires is 

 that afforded by its case. The head of the 

 full-grown caterpillar is porrected in crawl- 

 ing ; it is rather narrower than the body, and 

 is perfectly glabrous, but emits about thirty 

 fine hairs, which are directed forwards ; the 

 body is of uniform substance throughout, the 

 back slightly depressed, the belly flattened ; 

 each segment has twelve warts, and each wart 

 emits a bristle. The colour of the head is 

 intense black and shining, the labrum white ; 

 the dorsal surface of the body is dark smoke- 

 coloured as far as the spiracles, and having 

 an irregular narrow medio-dorsal yellowish 

 stripe, interrupted on the tenth, eleventh, 

 and twelfth segments ; the warts and bristles 

 are white, the ventral surface beginning at 

 the spiracles, as also the legs and claspers are 

 ochreous yellow ; in very wet weather, when 

 the catei pillar feeds voraciously, the belly and 

 all the under parts assume a tinge of green : 

 nevertheless, although these parts assume this 

 green tinge after voracious feeding, they in- 

 variably return to their normal colour before 

 pupation, thus proving the altered tinge to 

 be the result of repletion : when the time of 

 pupation arrives, they usually secrete them- 

 selves in holes in the wall, and spin a slight 

 web among old spiders' webs, dust, and 



