io 6 
TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 
membranous capsule, which is situated on either side of the body 
at the base of the abdomen, and which is covered with some 
hairs that can be made to vibrate. The fondness of the moth 
for honey leads it into bee-hives, and it is most remarkable that 
the insect should know that honey is to be got there. The bees, 
moreover, do not rush upon the robber, but employ every artifice 
to shut it out or wall it up. 
The caterpillar is perhaps the largest among the European 
kinds. It is usually lemon yellow in colour, and a fresh green 
tint may be noticed towards the head and the lower part of the 
sides ; there are seven oblique violet stripes on the sides, and 
the spiracles are black, edged with white. The horn is yellowish, 
rough, and inclined backwards. Sometimes the colour is by no 
means like this, for some caterpillars have been found whose 
prevailing colour is brownish olive, and whose lateral stripes are 
darker. A fresh green tint is accompanied by dark blue stripes 
in others. This great caterpillar lives on the potato leaf, the 
jasmine, and the common tea tree ( Lycium bcirbarum ); and when 
full grown it hides in the earth, and undergoes its metamorphosis 
into the chrysalis. 
The death’s head moth is more common in Asia and in Africa 
than in Europe, and there is no doubt that many of the pupae 
are destroyed in this country and in France during severe winters. 
Perhaps the largest sphinges in the world live in Australia, 
and their caterpillars feed upon the Banksia trees and bushes, 
which form most important parts of the foliage of the landscape 
of that country. 
The sphinges gradually become more and more like that 
great tribe of moths which may be considered to be represented 
by the silkworm moth. Thus there are some sphinges which 
have slender, flexible, or more or less pectinated antennae, and 
rudimentary trunks instead of the long and flexible organs of 
some of the hawks. Such species of the genus Smerinthus as 
the eyed hawks, poplar hawks, and lime hawks, live upon willow, 
poplar, birch, and apple trees, and connect by their structures 
the death’s head moths, the privet, and humming-bird moths with 
the Bombycina or the spinners. 
The insects of this group are very numerous, and often attain 
