CATERPILLARS. 
123 
will carry him to their own quarters for the food of their 
children, and those 'which will quarter their children on 
him, or, I should say, in him. Finally, the few that have 
survived all these dangers have to run the gauntlet of the 
birds, the restless little tree warblers and sun-birds and 
bulbuls and tailor birds, which hunt the foliage of the 
forest and the garden from morning till night. 
Some means must be devised whereby at least a few, 
say one per cent, of the caterpillars which are produced 
may escape all these perils and arrive at maturity, or else 
the race will become extinct. By far the most successful 
expedient that has been tried is loathsomeness ; there are 
some caterpillars which no decent bird would touch. But 
the taste of a bird is different from that of a fly. What 
the one loathes the other may love, and no caterpillar can 
carry two flavours at once ; accordingly, I find that those 
caterpillars which are perfectly secure from birds are the 
very kind which suffer most from ichneumons. To ward 
off this pest the swallow-tails have a curious organ in their 
necks, a sort of forked scent bottle, emitting pungent and 
poisonous fumes. This they stick out and brandish franti- 
cally when they suspect danger. But the little fiend is 
patient, for it has nothing else to do. It waits till its 
