MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 255 
each of the above branches there issues a long, cylindri+ 
cal, slender, fleshy, and very flexible organ of a rose co-= 
lour, to which the caterpillar can give every imaginable 
curve or inflexion, causing it sometimes to assume even 
a spiral form. It enters the tube, or issues from it, in 
the same manner as the horns of snails or slugs. These 
tails form a kind of double whip, the tubes representing 
the handle, and the horns the thong or lash, with which 
the animal drives away the ichneumons and flies that at- 
tempt to settle upon it. Touch any part of the body, 
and immediately one or both the horns will appear and 
be extended ; and the animal will, as it were, lash the 
spot where it feels that you incommode it. De Geer, 
from whom this account is taken, says that this caterpil- 
lar will bite very sharply ?.—Several larvee of butterflies, 
distinguished at their head by a semicoronet of strong 
spines, figured by Madame Merian, are armed with sin- 
gular anal organs, which may have a similar use. R6- 
sel when he first saw the caterpillar of the puss-moth 
stretched out his hand with great eagerness, so he tells 
us, to take the prize; but when in addition to its grim 
attitude he beheld it dart forth these menacing catapults, 
apprehending they might be poisonous organs, his cou- 
rage failed him. At length without touching the mon- 
ster, he ventured to cut off the twig on which it was, and 
let it drop into a box*! The caterpillar of the gold-tail 
moth (Bombyx chrysorhea, F.) has a remarkable aper- 
ture, which it can open and shut, surrounded by a ria 
on the upper part of each segment. ‘This aperture in- 
cludes a little cavity, from which it has the power of 
2 De Geer, i. 8322— b Ins. Surinam. t. Vill. XX1l, XXXIL. 
¢ F iv, 122, 
