ON THE REASONING POWERS OF CATERPILLARS. 



By S. Everard Woods. 



(A Paper read before the Leeds Naturalists' Club and Scientific 

 Association, Nov. IJfbh, 1876.) 



[Note. — It will be evident that this Paper was not written for publication. 

 I judge it, however, better to let it appear in its original form, rather 

 than to commence a series of emendations, which would necessitate its 

 being re-written from beginning to end. — S. E. W. ] 



" We are before we think ; and our consciousness of our own existence is not an 

 inference, but a certainty, anterior to all reasoning." — " Philosophy without 

 Assumptions,'' hy Archbishop Manning, in " Contemporary Review." 



I HAVE chosen caterpillars for the subject of this paper, not because 

 I suppose there to be a wide chasm separating them from other 

 similar forms of insect life, but because I have personally had 

 opportunities, when collecting and breeding lepidoptera, of watching 

 with some attention their manners, habits, and customs. 



Those who have not studied entomology will have but a faint idea 

 of the beauty of colour, the variety of markings, the diversity of 

 form, and, I may add, the eccentricity of appearance, presented by 

 British larvse. They well deserve an illustrated history of their own ; 

 but I much fear that till chromo-lithography arrives at a higher state 

 of development than the present, they will get scant measure of justice. 



There are caterpillars that are fat and fleshy, and caterpillars that 

 are lean and flabby ; caterpillars that are smooth as Jacob, and 

 caterpillars that are hairy as Esau ; caterpillars that thrive, like 

 Mithridates, on poisons, and caterpillars that regale themselves, like 

 Jonathan, with honey. There are caterpillars with horns on their 

 tails, and caterpillars with tails on their heads ; while the attitudes 

 they assume range from the dignified to the grotesque. 



It will be worth our while to consider here, how are these peculiari 

 ties of form, colour and instinct preserved through the intermediate 

 form of the moth or butterfly — a creature with different organs^ 

 different capabilities, and consequently different instincts altogether. 

 If from the egg of the butterfly sprang a butterfly, there would be 

 little more wonder than at the egg of a swan producing a cygnet ; 

 but the caterpillar forms a break in the chain. Its instincts impel it 

 to crawl, to climb, to feed, to sleep, to change its skin, and shed its 

 mask ; to spin, to burrow, or to build a sarcophagus, according to its 

 species. The instincts of the chrysalis are limited, at any rate 



N, S., Vol. ii.— Feb., 1877. 



