178 STATES OF INSECTS, 



binets, which I noticed in a former letter a . All the hairs 

 of its body are rough with minute points ; but those of 

 six diverging long tufts or aigrettes, laid obliquely on 

 the anal extremity of the body, which the animal when 

 alarmed erects as a porcupine does its quills, are of a 

 most singular structure : every hair is composed of a se- 

 ries of little conical pieces, placed end to end, the point 

 of which is directed towards the origin of each hair, which 

 is terminated at the other extremity by a long and large 

 conical mass, resembling somewhat the head of a pike b . 

 Besides the one lately mentioned, other caterpillars 

 are rendered striking by the brilliant colour of the tuber- 

 cles from which their hairs emerge, A remarkable in- 

 stance of this is the thick large caterpillar of a Bombyx, 

 which feeds upon the Psidium pyriferum^ or white Guava, 

 figured by Madame Merian. This caterpillar, which is 

 white, with transverse black stripes, and which has two 

 singular long converging curved bunches of hairs near 

 the tail, is splendidly adorned on each side with fifty red 

 tubercles, shining like coral, from which proceed six or 

 seven long; diverging hairs. Leeuwenhoeck took these 

 tubercles for eyes c . Another figured by the same lady, 

 who mistakes it, with her usual inaccuracy, for the larva 

 of a Lygceus F., and which seems by her description to 

 be between the onisciform and limaciform types, has the 

 apparently fleshy mamillae that project from its sides and 

 back crowned with little hairy red globes, which give the 

 animal a most singular and unique appearance d . Hav- 

 ing thus described some of the principal modes in which 



a See above, Vol. I. p. 238. 



h De Geer iv. 207. t. viii./. 4—8. 



f Ins. Stir, t. xix, right hand caterpillar, d Ibid. xli. 



