208 
Dr. Kidd on tlie 
office of antennae, which warn the insect of approaching danger 
in its progressive motions, it has two appendages, which might 
not improperly be called caudal antennae, evidently calculated 
to serve a similar purpose during its retrogade motions ; par- 
ticularly as they are furnished with very large nerves. The 
indifference with which the insect is disposed to move in 
either direction is manifested by the following experiment : 
if you touch it towards the head, it retreats ; if towards the 
other extremity of the body, it advances. 
The general colour of the animal is such as indirectly to 
serve as a protection to it, being nearly of the same hue as 
the vegetable mould in which it lives ; so that it is not very 
readily distinguished upon being first turned up to view ; and 
its safety seems to be still farther insured by the appearance 
of death, which, in common with many other insects, it 
assumes when suddenly disturbed. This stratagem, for so 
it may be called, appears to be most decidedly practised by 
the animal while in captivity ; and if thrown at random out 
of the vessel in which it has been confined, however unnatural 
the posture may be into which it has been thrown, it remains 
as it were in a state of catalepsy during half a minute or 
more ; the first indication which it gives of recovery from 
this stupor, invariably consists in a motion of the extremity 
of the antenna. 
The general colour of the insect is a dusky brown, passing 
either into a reddish brown, or into an ochry yellow ; those 
parts being of the darkest colour which are most exposed to 
view when the animal is moving in the open air. Every part 
of the body is to a greater or less degree covered by a kind 
of down, which seems to be the efficient cause of its capa- 
