48 BRITISH MOTHS 



SPECIES 1.— COSSUS LIGNIPERDA. Plate IX., Fio. 1—3. 



Synonymes. — Phaliena {Bombyx) Cossus, Linnscus ; Donovan, 

 vol. 4, pi. 114; Albin, pi. 35; Wilkes, pi. 31 ; Harris, Aurclian, 

 pi. 23 ; Haworth. 



Cossus lupiiperda, Fabricius ; Stephens; Curtis, Brit. Ent., pi. 



CO; Wood, hill. Ent., pi. 5, fig. 7 ; Duncan, Brit. Moths, pi 14, 

 fig. 2, 3. 



Xyteutes Cossus^ Iliibner, Verz. bek. Schm., Newman. 



This fine insect varies from 25 to nearly 3 iuclies in the expansion of the fore wings, which are of ashy- 

 wliitc clondcd with brown, especially across the middle, and marked with an infinite number of slender, short, 

 black, irregular streaks, forming a kind of net-work. The hind wings are brown, witli darker and more 

 obscure reticulations extending along the margins of the wings. 



The thorax is ochre-coloured in front, pale in the middle, and with a black bar behind ; the abdomen is 

 brown, with the margins of the segments pale yellowish grey, especially in the female. 



The caterjnllar is of a dull yellowish fleshy hue, with dark chesnut scales on the back of each segment ; the 

 head, and two triangular spots on the first segment of the body, black ; it is naked, having only a few short 

 scattered hairs upon the segments. It chiefly feeds upon willows and poplars, but will attack various other 

 trees, boring into tiie solid wood, on which it subsists, and thus doing great damage to the timber ; indeed, 

 young trees attacked by it are often rendered so weak that a violent gale of wind throws them down. This 

 may be easily conceived, because when full grown it is as large as a man's finger. It forms a rough cocoon of 

 the chips of wood, which it has bitten to pieces, fastening them together with a glutinous secretion, and lining 

 them with silk. The pui>a has the head-case acute, and each of the abdominal segments is furnished with several 

 rows of reflexed spiny hooks, which are of great service in enabling the pupa, shortly before arriving at the 

 perfect state, to push itself through its cocoon, and to the surface of the tree ; out of the aperture of which the 

 exuvia may be seen partially sticking after the moth has escaped. 



This is one of the largest European moths, and its larva has been supposed by many authors to have been 

 the celebrated Cossus of Pliny, which was considered in his time so great a dainty with the Roman epicures. 

 Its ofiensive smell, however, and the power it has of discharging a fetid fluid at its persecutors, which causes 

 pain, render it questionable whether the true Cossus was not the larva of some large wood-boring beetle. This 

 insect has, however, acquired greater celebrity from having been selected by Lyonnet, the prince of entomological 

 anatomists, as the subject of his magnificent work, " Traite Anatomique de la Chenille qui rouge le Bois du 

 Saule," 4to. The Hague, I7()0 ; in which the structure of the caterpillar was most elaborately investigated in 

 every point of view, whilst the anatomy of the pupa and imago are similarly (but not so completely) treated in 

 his posthumous " Recherches sur I'Anatomie et les Metamorphoses de differents Insectes," recently published. It 

 will be sufficient, in order to give some idea of the careful manner in which the anatomy of this caterpillar has 

 been studied in this work, to mention that Lyonnet discovered not fewer than 4061 muscles in its body ; 228 

 being attached to the head, 1647 to the body, and 2186 to the intestines, whereas in the human body only 529 

 have been discovered ; so that this caterpillar possesses nearly eight times as many muscles as are contained in 

 the human frame. I may refer the reader to KiJllar's work on obnoxious insects, (translated by JMiss Loudon,) 

 for many details of the natural history of this insect. 



The goat-moth is abundant in various parts of the country. It remains in the caterpillar state three years, 

 the moth appearing in the mouths of June and -July. 



