78 
ENEMIES OF THE CATERPILLAR. 
pillar has another foe, in the shape of an 
insect, called the “ walking leaf.” Its name 
is given to it, because it is just like a withered 
leaf to look at, and you might almost trample 
upon it by mistaken It hunts for the cater¬ 
pillars, and devours them without any mercy, 
and they are obliged, as you have already heard, 
to shut themselves very closely into their nests, 
and only venture out at night. 
The natives seem to have the same propensity 
for eating caterpillars, as the “ walking leaf” has. 
They climb the 'trees, and take a great deal of 
trouble to find them, and esteem them quite 
a dainty morsel. Hundreds and thousands of 
caterpillars thus fall victims, to what appears to 
us a most unnatural taste. 
But what is quite as curious, in Hew Zealand, 
the caterpillar is sometimes attacked by the tiny 
spores or seeds of a fungus; and they are as 
fatal to it as the eggs of the ichneumon fly, or 
any other of its enemies. 
The caterpillar feeds upon a climbing shrub, 
and drops to the ground and buries itself in the 
earth, in order to undergo its change. But 
somehow or other, the tiny seeds of the fungus 
find their way into its body, where they take 
root and grow. So that instead of changing 
