370 THE DEATH'S-HEAD MOTH. 



have been in such places is clear, otherwise there 

 could not be larvae, but the habits of the creature are 

 so retiring that it sculks under the leaves of its 

 favourite plants, and thus may exist in many places 

 where it has not been seen. 



When the larvae is met with, it occasions nearly as 

 much alarm as the moth, though the alarm be of a 

 different kind. The peasantry, and even a great 

 number of persons who have had considerable ad- 

 vantages of education, are ignorant of the changes 

 that take place in insect life; and therefore, every 

 caterpillar of an unusual size or shape portends some- 

 thing. We have more than once known one of the 

 death's-head larvae excite the dread of a plague of 

 locusts, of which ignorance and fear set it down as the 

 pledge and harbinger. True, it is far from being like 

 a locust ; but they who felt the alarm knew just as 

 little of a locust as they did of the change of the cater- 

 pillar to a moth ; and thus the unusual shape and size 

 of the young death's-head made it every way a locust 

 to them. 



The caterpillar is, indeed, an unusual one ; and both 

 in size and beauty has few equals in the country. The 

 length is between four and five inches ; the eyes and 

 antennae are conspicuous, and the colours are bright. 

 The prevailing colour is a brilliant yellow, with a row 

 of stripes on each side, of azure and violet. These 

 are transverse ; the ends of them toward the back are 

 pointed, and there are black dots, which are considered 

 by the country people as eyes. 



The sound which this moth utters, must, like the 

 chirping of some other insects, and the notes of birds, 



