432 THE ZOOLOGIST. 
entering the skin.” Mr. Dunning and Mr. Waterhouse raised the question 
whether the hairs thus penetrating the skin might not possess some 
poisonous quality. 
“On the penultimate and ante-penultimate segments of the Gold-tail 
Moth, Liparis auriflua, will be seen dorsally two scarlet conical and trun- 
cated tubercles, which superiorly present a keyhole-shaped orifice. These 
when the caterpillar contracts its tubercles, which it does in the fashion of 
a sea anemone, enlarge by the constriction to a triangular shape, and a 
colourless liquid wells up to their rim. A pencil-point dipped in this and 
applied to the cheek or eyelid will at once renew the said burning sensation, 
and leave little doubt as regards the caustic property of the fluid. The 
larva then in this instance poisons its lances, and if a magnifying power be — 
applied, the drops of moisture conglobing on the hairy armature are revealed 
to view, squirted from the hinder craters, by constriction we may presume, 
since touch unneeditiiesy produces a contraction in the hinder segments of 
the caterpillar.” 
The following communication was received from Mr. R. M‘Lachlan :— 
“Tn the ‘Comptes Rendus,’ of the Belgian Entomological Society of the 
5th July (1879), is a notice by M. Meélise on the subject of correlation of 
mutilation in the larva with deformity in the imago. M. Mélise operated upon 
teri selected silkworms by cutting off the right metathoracic leg of each. All 
went through their transformations, and the operation caused, apparently, 
little inconvenience, for they recommenced feeding almost immediately after- 
wards. The effect on the moths produced from these larvae was as follows :— 
One was deprived of three tarsal joints, but the claw was developed. Three 
were deprived of three tarsal joints, and of the claw also. Three had only 
the femur and tibia. One had the leg ‘amputated’ in the middle of the 
femur. The two others had only a stump, scarcely a millimetre in length. 
M. Meélise adds that in not one of the moths was the leg absolutely absent, 
and that the variation in the amount of deformity probably resulted from 
the difficulty of performing the amputation in the larve at. precisely the 
same place in each. In the case of insects with incomplete metamorphoses 
parallel experiments have often been made, and with similar results; but 
with Lepidoptera they have been so few as to render confirmatory evidence 
of the statements of other experimenters of much value.” 
Part II. of the ‘Transactions’ for 1879 was on the table-—R. Mrexpota, 
Hon. Secretary. 
