MOTHS AND THEIR CATERPILLARS. 203 



will prove a prize beyond the reach of most 

 collectors. 



Then there are the curious Caterpillars of the Geo- 

 metrce, well worthy a place in the collection for their 

 singular method of locomotion, and the curiously 

 stiff positions in which some of them remain, having 

 all the appearance, from their singular colour and 

 surface, of pieces of dried stick. Some very handsome 

 Moths — as the Currant-moth, the Peppers, and 

 others — exhibit this formation in their larvae, and 

 many species of them have wingless females, some 

 of which are such very singular creatures that none 

 but entomologists would ever guess them to be Moths. 

 Then there are the Caterpillars of the " Proces- 

 sionary Moth," so called from the curious habit 

 which the Caterpillars exhibit infollowing each other, 

 step by step, in whatever direction the caprice of the 

 leader chooses to conduct them. In the entomo- 

 logical department of the British Museum there 

 was recently to be seen a living brood of these cu- 

 rious larvae, which exhibited their processional in- 

 stincts quite undisturbed by the artificial position 

 in which they found themselves. But as I shall 

 have occasion to speak of these larvae again when 

 describing the best methods of rearing foreign 

 species, I must not say more of them here. 



