208 



MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



spiral form. It enters the tube, or issues from it, in the same 

 manner as the horns of snails or slugs. These tails form a 

 kind of double whip, the tubes representing the handle, and 

 the horns the thong or lash with which the animal drives 

 away the ichneumons and flies that attempt to settle upon it. 

 Touch any part of the body, and immediately one or both 

 the horns will appear and be extended ; and the animal will, 

 as it were, lash the spot where it feels that you incommode 

 it. De Geer, from whom this account is taken, says that 

 this caterpillar will bite very sharply. 1 — Several larvae of 

 butterflies, distinguished at their head by a semi-coronet of 

 strong spines, figured by Madame Merian, are armed with 

 singular anal organs 2 , which may have a similar use. Rosel, 

 when he first saw the caterpillar of the puss-moth, stretched 

 out his hand with great eagerness, so he tell us, to take the 

 prize ; but when in addition to its grim attitude he beheld it 

 dart forth these menacing catapults, apprehending they might 

 be poisonous organs, his courage failed him. At length, with- 

 out touching the monster, he ventured to cut off the twig on 

 which it was, and let it drop into a box ! 3 The caterpillar 

 of the gold-tail moth {Porihesia clirysorhcea) has a remarkable 

 aperture, which it can open and shut, surrounded by a rim 

 on the upper part of each segment. This aperture includes 

 a little cavity, from which it has the power of darting forth 

 small flocks of a cottony matter that fills it. 4 This manoeuvre 

 is probably connected with our present subject, and employed 

 to defend it from its enemies. It also ejects a fluid from 

 its anus. 



There is a moth in New Holland, the larva of which 

 annoys its foes in a different way : from eight tubercles in its 

 back it darts forth, when alarmed, as many bunches of little 

 stings, by which it inflicts very painful and venomous 

 wounds. 5 



The caterpillar of the moth of the beach (Stauropus Fagi), 

 called the lobster, is distinguished by the uncommon length 

 of its anterior legs. Mr. Stephens, an acute entomologist, 



' De Geer, i. 322. 



3 1. iv. 122. 



5 Lewin's Prodromus. 



2 Ins. Surinam, t. viii. xxiii. xxxiii. 

 4 Reaum. ii. 155. t. vii. f. 4 — 7. 



