1900.] Major A. Al cock — Exhihttion of some insects. 3 



of this iron, the specimen has not yet been examined in detail. The 

 surface shows the " thumb-matks " characteristic of the liolosiderites. 



A certain amount of interest is attached to this " find " on account of 

 the rarity of Indian meteoric irons. 



Although stony meteorites have been found in great numbers, only 

 one other iron has been obtained in India, and that was seen to fall near 

 Nidigullura (lat. 18° 41' 20" ; long 83° 28' 30") in the Vizagapatam 

 district on January 23rd, 1870. Tlie NidiguUum meteorite* weighed 

 lOlbs. only ; its model and a piece of the iion are preserved in the col- 

 lection of the Geological Survey of India, Calcutta, 



Major A. Alcock, I.M.S., exhibited and made the following remarks 

 on some insects that possess special means of scaring their enemies. 



Tlie instances of natural protection here exhibited are all well 

 known, and I claim no originality in speaking of them. 



They consist of larvae of three species of Lepidoptera which possess 

 special means —so far as one can judge — of scaring their enemies. 



In two of these cases the protection afforded by the " scare " ap- 

 pears — at any rate in certain stages of existence — to be supplemented 

 by at least one form of disguise, making security doubly sure. 



The first exhibit includes enlarged drawings of the larvae of tlie 

 Lyccenid butterfly Guretis tlietys. Those larvae were common enough in 

 my garden, during last rainy season, on young trees of Ponyamia 

 glabra. 



In its youngest stage the larva very much resembles — both in form 

 and colour, and also in the position that it usually takes up in or near 

 the axil of a young leaf — a leaf -bud or a fleshy stipule. 



In a later stage it has a large indefinite patch of white on either 

 side of its body which give it a cejtain amount of resemblance to a 

 bird's-dropping with the usual smear of uric acid. 



In its latest stage the patches of white are well defined, and except 

 that its prevailing colour is bright green, like the leaves on which it 

 feeds, the larva has no special disguise-markings. 



There now however comes in the scaring apparatus, tliough it, 

 indeed, has been in existence from the first. This consists of a pair of 

 brushes — much like bottle-brushes, or, perhaps, more like a thistle-head 

 in seed — which can be suddenly shot out from two tall chimney-like 

 excrescences on the dorsal surface of the last segment of the body, and 

 when so extruded can be rapidly whirled round and round. 



Whenever the animal is touched — in any of its larval stages — these 

 brushes are ejected and worked with the greatest vigour. 



* Proc, Asiatic Socy. Beng., 1870, p. 64. 



