Natural- History Collectors. 4549 



done so : perhaps they protect themselves by their habit of pene- 

 trating very deeply into the plant, besides that their colour renders 

 them less conspicuous than others. Neither am I aware that the 

 number of the green caterpillar ever approaches nearly to that of the 

 variegated kind, as during the last two seasons. The latter insect, 

 when uninjured, seems to me to undergo its change, if upon a plain 

 surface, in a perpendicular position, with the head uppermost. Fre- 

 quently, however, it selects a depression in the face of a wall, or fixes 

 itself under the coping bricks, or in some similar spot, when its posi- 

 tion is necessarily varied according to the situation, but I have never, 

 I believe, found a chrysalis reversed. When the insect has become 

 merely a case for the parasites, it makes the final pause in any direc- 

 tion, as often as not perhaps with the head downwards. Among the 

 myriads which wander in search of a resting-place, not one perhaps 

 of the sound, and very rarely one of the unsound, caterpillars will 

 stop upon a wall exposed to the south or south-west, that is, to the 

 winds from the sea. A favourite locality is a line of wall facing east- 

 ward, and open throughout to the north-east ; consequently they can 

 have no instinctive apprehension of the effects of frost, contrary to 

 the common and groundless notion of that being generally fatal to 

 insect life. 



Experience has suggested to a neighbour and friend, who has been 

 much pestered with the creatures, that probably a very durable green 

 dye might be obtained from the bodies of cabbage-fed caterpillars. 

 Years of washing have not effaced the stain of one accidentally 

 crushed upon linen, nor will water remove such marks from a brick 

 pavement. 



Arthur Hussey. 

 Rottiugdean, November 10, 1854. 



Proceedings of Natural- History Collectors in Foreign Countries. 



Mr. H. W. Bates * — Santarem, March 27, 1854. — Although I can- 

 not get ready a collection by this month's steamer, I think it well to 

 write, and chiefly to let you know of the safe arrival, a fortnight ago, 

 of the box of books and packet of letters forwarded by you on the 26th 

 of December last. I cannot give you an idea of the pleasure it caused 



* Communicated by Mr. S. Stevens. 

 XIII. D 



