STATES OF INSECTS. 179 



the All-wise Creator has decked and defended these 

 creatures with hairs, I shall next give you a short ac- 

 count of the spines with which he has armed others. 

 The spinous larvae are principally lepidopterous, and more 

 particularly conspicuous in some tribes of the genus Pa- 

 pilio L., though some saw-flies and Diptera are also di- 

 stinguished by them. Vanessa Io % Atalanta and Urtica, 

 Argynnis Paphia, Urania Leilus, and many other But- 

 terflies, &c. are clothed with long sharp points, which 

 claim the denomination of spines, rather than that of 

 hairs or bristles ; being horny and hard, and so stiff at 

 the point as readily to pierce the skin. Those of the last- 

 mentioned species, Madame Merian says, are as stiff as 

 iron-wire b . They are sometimes entirely simple, and 

 look like spikes rather than spines, as in the caterpillar 

 of Nymphalis Amphinome and Morpko Menelaus c ; but 

 ordinarily they are beset with hairs, or more commonly 

 with shorter spines, which often give them the appearance 

 of plumes, as in Urania Leilus just mentioned: sometimes 

 these lateral spines are so long as to have the appear- 

 ance of a branch of a tree; this is strikingly the case with 

 a small caterpillar which Captain Hancock brought from 

 Brazil ; its body is so thickly planted with spines of this 

 description, that it absolutely wears the appearance of 

 a forest or thicket in miniature. A singular circum- 

 stance attends the spines of this species : in many cases 

 a smaller and very slender hair-like spine issues from 

 them, resembling a sting ; and this accounts for an ob- 

 servation of Abbott's, that many American caterpillars 

 sting like a nettle, raising little white blisters on the skin 



* Plate XVIII. Fig. 13. 



b Int. Sttr. t. xxix. ' Ibid. t. vii. Hit. 



N 2 



