Marvels of the Universe 



49 



head, like the hart that Baron Munchausen shot with cherry-stones and met years later with a 

 cherr3--tree growing from its head. As a matter of fact, the caterpillar does not walk about with 

 this encumbrance, for by the time the plant has developed the caterpillar is dead. 



Everybody knows the rather large pale moth, called Ghost-moth, that flits about our 

 gardens and fields at dusk, and whose caterpillar spends its days underground feeding on 

 the roots of grass and other plants. There is in New Zealand an allied moth, whose 

 caterpillar falls a prej' to a species of fungus known as Cordiceps. The probability is 

 that it eats the microscopic spore of the fungus whilst taking its usual food and the 

 spore germinates inside it. Its growth fills up the whole of the caterpillar, upon whose 

 organs it draws for nourishment, and whilst retaining the caterpillar form, converts a soft, 

 juicy creature into a hard, wooden corpse. Then a shoot emerges just behind the head and 

 rises into the air, the shoot attaining a length of six inches, of which the upper third con- 

 sists of a thickened mass of spores which fly off into the air to destroy other caterpillars. It is 



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THE VEGETABLE CATERPILLAR. 



As shown in this pKotograph the insect has been misunderstood by many, who have supposed that it walks about with 



this encumbrance attached to it. 



this New Zealand species that is shown in our photographs : that on the present page showing 

 it as though walking, but the correct position is given on page 48, where it is seen below 

 ground with the fungus reaching up into the air. 



A similar species occurs in China, where it is known by the poetical name of " the summer 

 grass of the winter-worm." The Chinese attribute medicinal virtues to it, and no Chinese drug- 

 store is without a stock of it tied up in little bundles. Other species are found in different parts 

 of the globe, three of them in Britain. The last are much smaller than the New Zealand species ; 

 but one, often found springing from underground chrysalids, makes up for its smallness by its 

 bright red colour. 



At Guadeloupe a similar fungus attacks the wasp, and the wasp is said to have been found 

 actually hving with the encumbrance attached, though evidently in the last stage of existence. 

 Others attack beetles, crickets and cicadas. Our common house-fly falls a victim in large numbers 

 to a fungus of quite another sort. In autumn the flies may be seen on windows or walls, apparently 

 only resting ; but when an effort is made to dislodge them they are found to be fixed to their 

 support by a fine feltwork of silky threads, with which also the fly's body is filled. 



4 



