6 ON SOME INSECT DEFORMITIES. 



men. believing- it to be a new ami very curious species of Lepidopteron, 



with all the characters of the order, except that the head is exactly that 

 of a caterpillar. In the same volume of the Memoires, the editor (Pre- 

 face, p. 8) believes it more prudent not to admit Mueller's insect as 

 a new species, because a tact contrary to all hitherto known must be 

 proved by a great * umber of observations before it can be adopted by 

 the scientific world. Professor Beckmann, the reputed polyhistor from 

 Goettingen, in his Physik. Oekon. Bibliothek. Vol. VI, p. 338. be- 

 lieves that Mueller's insect is only a deformity. A review of Mueller's 

 paper in the Comment. Lipsiens. I Vol. XXI. p. 466) I have not seen. 



The French paper is translated by the Rev. J. A. E. Goeze, in the 

 16th part of the Naturforscher (1781). pp. 203-212, pi. 1. The plate 

 is of course the same as Mueller's plate, but somewhat inferior in exe- 

 cution. The translation, in some places at least, does not entirely 

 agree with the original, as Goeze introduces some suppositions to ex- 

 plain more fully Mueller's words, which are not everywhere free from 

 ambiguity. But it is to be remembered that Goeze had spoken of the 

 whole with Mueller, at a visit paid to him by the latter in 1776. At 

 that time the type was still present in the collection of the author, 

 which was afterwards destroyed at the bombardment of Kopenhagen. 

 In my Bibliotheca Entom. (Vol. I, p. 556) 1 stated that the insect was 

 Bombyx dispar, which is apparently an error. Westwood (Introd., 

 Vol. II, p. 3-56) calls it one of the Noctuidse; and Lacordaire (Introd., 

 Vol. II, p. 442). une Noctuelle. The insect is not mentioned in the 

 general works of Borkhausen and Ochsenheimer. but Werneburg (Beitr. 

 zur Schmetterl. kunde, Vol. I, p. 376), quotes it as Bombyx monacha, 

 and there is no doubt that this determination is a correct one. 



Mueller found the insect alive, quietly sitting on a stem of Epilobhon 

 montanum, on July 28, 1762. pinned it, and only became aware at 

 home of the remarkable fact that the head of the caterpillar was still 

 existing on the moth. Both Mueller and Goeze give as the date June 

 28, apparently erroneously, as in the paper it is twice stated that the 

 insect lived ten days on the pin, until the 6th of August, when it died. 

 From June 28 to July 6 there are only nine days. 



The description by Mueller is as follows : 



Nearly the size of Phal. vinula ; upper wings white, with several 

 transverse zigzag lines, the border spotted with black; hind-wings 

 smaller, grayish, the border with alternate black and white spots : all 

 the wings blackish underneath, the border spotted with black ; abdo- 

 men black, somewhat hairy, with five yellow rings, which are broad 

 above, narrower beneath, and twice interrupted ; the tip of the abdo- 

 men pointed, yellow, with a yellow ovipositor ; the prothorax densely 

 covered with white hairs, sprinkled with black ; the thorax with four 

 legs, black and gray-colored ; the tibia with two spurs on the inside. 



