9 6 



INSECTS. 



The larvse are smooth, generally with a horn on the last segment of the abdomen. 

 They make no cocoon, but the pupa lies in the earth, into which the larva burrows 

 before the transformation takes place. As is the case with almost all, they are 

 protected by their colouring, which assimilates to that of the food-plant. These 

 fine insects are divided into several subfamilies and many genera. 



As the type of the subfamily Acherontince, may be taken the well-known 

 death's-head moth (Acherontia atropos), which is by far the largest of British 

 moths. It is a very stout, bulky insect, with strong, broad wings ; its thorax having 

 on the upper side a pale mark, which bears some small resemblance to a human 

 skull, whence it derives its scientific and trivial names. The fore-wings are dark 

 plum-colour, lined and spotted with the yellow ; the hind-wings yellow, with two 

 sinuous transverse bars of black ; and the body dark plum-colour, with black trans- 

 verse lines, and a yellow patch at the side of each segment. The most remarkable fact 

 about the moth is that it is capable of producing an audible squeak. Whether this is 



ADULT AND CATERPILLAR OF SPURGE HAWK-MOTH, WITH ICHNEUMON-FLY. 



produced, as was formerly supposed, by the friction of the palpi against the 

 coiled proboscis, or by the sudden passage of air — previously drawn into a cavity 

 in the stomach — through the oesophageal orifice and the proboscis, acting upon a 

 cleft at the extremity of the latter, is not certain. If, as has been asserted, the 

 squeak does not abate even on the decapitation of the moth, the air-passage theory 

 suffers a shock, and evidently does not entirely account for the noise. The 

 cleft at the end of the proboscis would perform a somewhat similar function to 

 that of the tongue in a penny trumpet, the reed in certain wind instruments, or 

 the orifice in a whistle-pipe. The handsome larva (green, with large, pale yellow, 

 swollen anterior segments, and yellow, black-speckled oblique stripes across the 

 sides), with its spinous tail, may be sometimes discovered on the jasmine and in 

 potato-fields. Not unfrequently, the large pupa tumbles from its friable earthen 

 case, when the potato crop is dug, The moth flies strongly at night, feasting 

 usually upon the sap oozing from the trees. It does not, however, hesitate to rob 

 the hive of the honey-bee, and apparently without molestation. 



