408 MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 
stag-horn capricorn beetle (Prionus Cervicornis) in America, may save them 
from the cruel fate of the poor cockchafer!, whose gyrations and motions, 
when transfixed by a pin, too often form the amusement of ill-disciplined 
children. The threatening horns also, prominent eyes, or black and dis- 
mal hue of many other Coleoptera belonging to Linné’s genera Scarabeus, 
Cicindela, and Carabus, may produce the same effect. 
But the most striking instances of armour are to be found amongst the 
homopterous Hemiptera. In some of these, the horns that rise from the 
thorax are so singular and monstrous, that nothing parallel to them can be 
found in nature. Of this kind is the Cicada spinosa Stoll®, the Centrotus 
clavatus *, and more particularly the Centrotus globularis *, so remarkable for 
the extraordinary apparatus of balls and spines, which it appears to carry 
erect, like a standard, over its head. What is the precise use of all the 
varieties of armour with which these little creatures are furnished it isnot 
easy to say, but they may probably defend them from the attack of some 
enemies. 
Under this head I may mention the long hairs, stiff bristles, sharp 
spines, and hard tubercular prominences with which many caterpillars are 
clothed, bristled, and studded. That these are means of defence is ren- 
dered more probable by the fact that, in several instances, the animals so 
distinguished at their last moult, previous to their assuming the pupa (in 
which state they are protected by other contrivances), appear with a 
smooth skin, without any of the tubercles, hairs, or spines for which they 
were before remarkable.® | Wonderful are the varieties of this kind which 
insects exhibit :—but I shall only here select a few facts more particularly 
connected with my present subject. The caterpillar of the great tiger- 
moth (Zuprepia Caja), which is beset with long dense hairs, when rolled 
up—an attitude it usually assumes if alarmed —cannot then be taken 
without great difficulty, slipping repeatedly from the pressure of the 
fingers. If its hairs do not render it distasteful, this may often be the 
means of its escape from the birds. That little destructive beetle Anthrenus 
MMusorum, which so annoys the entomologist, if it gets into his cabinets, 
when in the larva state being covered with bunches of diverging hairs, 
glides from between your fingers as if it were lubricated with oil. The 
two tufts of hairs near the tail of this are most curious in their structure, 
being jointed through their whole length, and terminating in a sharp 
halberd-shaped point.6 I have a small lepidopterous caterpillar from 
Brazil, the upper side of which is thickly beset with strong, sharp, branch- 
ing spines, which would enter into the finger, and would probably render 
it a painful morsel to any minor enemy. 
The powers of annoyance by means of their hairs, with which the moth 
of the fir, and the procession-moth, before noticed, are gifted, are doubtless 
1 One would almost wish that the same superstition prevailed here which 
‘Sparrman observes is common in Sweden, with respect to these animals. “Simple 
people,” says he, “believe that their sins will be forgiven if they set a cockchafer 
on its legs.”"—- Voyage, i. 28. 
2 Cigales, f. 85. 
3 Ibid. f. 115. Coquebert, Zilust. Ic. ii. t. xxviii. f. 5. 
4 Stoll, Cigales, f. 163. Comp. Pallas, Spicil. Zool. t. i. f. 12. 
5 Reaum. v. 94. 
® This was first pointed out to me by Mr. Briggs of the post-office, who sent mo 
an accurate drawing of the animal and of one of its hairs. I did not at that time 
discover that it had been figured by De Geer, iv. t. viii, f. 1. 7. 
