ON LARWE. 83 



use of in this way. Some merely curl up, pre- 

 senting a circle of silky spines (if of the hirsute kind), 

 after the manner of a Hedgehog. Some of the 

 Loopers extend their bodies in a straight line at 

 nearly a right angle from the branch on which they 

 are resting, looking so exactly like a small dead 

 branch, as to be often passed over without notice, 

 even when close to the eye, though a hungry bird 

 is seldom so easily deceived as the entomologist, 

 and darts upon them without hesitation. 



A small Lepidopterous larva, that of Dicranura 

 Vinula, has on the segment next the head a small 

 forked excrescence, each point of which is furnished 

 with a kind of rose like that of a watering-pan, 

 through which it can squirt to some distance a little 

 shower of acrid fluid, which causes for a short time 

 acute pain if it fall in the eye. This singular larva 

 has also another defence. It can put forth from 

 their cases near the tail two red filaments, which it 

 has the power of whisking about in every direc- 

 tion, and is thereby enabled to drive off a special 

 enemy in the form of an Ichneumon, which con- 

 tinually seeks to deposit its eggs in the skin of this 

 fierce little Caterpillar. Other Caterpillars, figured 

 by Merian and Horsefield, have, in appearance, some- 

 what similar appendages to those last named, and so 



