228 Marsh. 



development in this direction. In addition to these strong 

 jaws, notice how powerfully made is its thorax, and how 

 hard is its black shiny outside skin. What large mem- 

 branous wings it has, and how insistingly it withdraws them 

 under the strongly made wing-cases, or elytra. 



A word or two about its earlier history. The female lays 

 her eggs in the crevices of oak, willow, and other trees 

 common in our woods, and when the caterpillars hatch 

 therefrom, they bore into the solid wood of the tree on 

 which the eggs were laid. After a little time they change 

 their skin in the tunnel thus formed, the caterpillars get 

 larger, and make the tunnel proportionately bigger. How 

 much damage only one caterpillar may do it is impossible ta 

 say. but it keeps at this destructive work for at least three 

 or four years before it is full-grown. It is then a large 

 whitish grub, differing very greatty from that of the butter- 

 fly or moth ; for, although it has the six ordinary legs on the 

 thoracic segments, it is without fleshy protuberances or pro- 

 legs on the abdominal segments. 



It is said that in some instances the grub takes six years 

 to come to maturity, although four is the usual period 

 occupied. When full-fed the caterpillar forms a cocoon of 

 the chips and pieces of wood left loose in its burrow, and in 

 this it changes to a chrysalis. This is not active like that 

 of a dragon-fly, but quiescent like that of a moth. 



The Romans considered one of our largest wood-boring 

 caterpillars a great gastronomic delicacy, and used it for 

 edible purposes under the name of Cossus. The honour 

 of being the particular dainty in question is disputed 

 by three caterpillars that of the Stag-beetle, which we 

 have just been talking about ; that of the Goat-moth, which 



