226 
have not room to turn their bodies so as to present the generative 
organs conveniently to the male, consequently the immense develop- 
ment of the abdomen in the males is of the greatest importance ; but 
it appears very extraordinary that the head of the female should be 
inverted, when it is known that she never emerges from the case, 
unless by accidentally falling therefrom, which position obliges the 
male, when in the act of coition, to stretch his abdomen all along the 
side of the female full 12 inch. This peculiarity appears to be the 
design of the All-wise Creator in order to afford a secure shelter 
for the defenceless larvee, viz. the pupa-case of their parent, from 
which they emerge after the disappearance of their mother’s body, 
and immediately form for themselves silken cases, covered with small 
pieces of anything they can procure, arranged in every respect as in 
the large ones. 
The curious larva of this species with its case was first figured in a 
little miscellaneous work on natural history published at the close of 
the last century, entitled ‘The Naturalist’s Pocket Magazine,’ vol. i. 
(1799) pl. 18, under the name of the Porcupine Caterpillar of New 
South Wales, without however its transformations having been ob- 
served. In the accompanying account of its habits, drawn up by an 
observer at Port Jackson, it is stated, that when any accident happens 
to its case, the Caterpillar repairs with incredible expedition what- 
ever damage may have been received, so that in a very few hours it 
fills up a large hole with the same silky substance, and this 
with an exactness so perfect, that the nicest eye cannot discern what 
was the extent of the injury. The bottom of the case resembles the 
finest fleecy hosiery, and it is of a sort of grey, ash, or mouse colour, 
and has the silky softness of a mole’s skim. The three segments 
following the head of the caterpillar are of a fine yellow colour, beau- 
tifully marked with black or dusky oblong spots: the eight following 
segments are of a dirtyish pale yellow colour, but the upper part of 
the terminal segment has the appearance of being covered with a 
large scale, though it is, in fact, only a substance of the same beau- 
tiful spotted yellow as the head and first three segments. 
The full-grown larva of the female is represented in Plate XXXV. 
fig. 12. The head is comparatively small and nearly horizontal, the 
anterior margin of the head rounded, the clypeus forming a distinct 
but continuous piece, behind which is a small triangular portion 
bearing two minute tubercles near the middle of the face, the 
upper side of the head is uniform fulvous-buff coloured, the labrum 
is deflexed and deeply notched in the middle, the mandibles are strong 
and black ; on either side of the head beneath is a black patch, at 
the anterior margin of which is placed the small group of ocelli on 
either side, and between them and the base of the mandibles are the 
antennze, which in the dried specimens appear to consist of a very 
short annuliform basal joint, within the membranous apex of which 
are sunk the terminal joints, of which only the minute apex of the 
apical one is visible. The thoracic segments gradually imcrease in 
width and thickness, as do also the three pairs of thoracic legs, of 
which the cox are soldered together and dilated into a broad horny 
