
AS BRITISH MOTHS 
SPECIES 1.—COSSUS LIGNIPERDA. Puate IX., Fic..1—3. 
Synonymes.—Phalena (Bombyx) Cossus, Linneus; Donovan, | 60; Wood, Ind. Ent., pl. 5, fig. 7; Duncan, Brit. Moths, pl. 14, 
vol. 4, pl. 114; Albin, pl. 35; Wilkes, pl. 315; Harris, Anrelian, | fig. 2, 3. 
pl. 23; Haworth. Xyleutes Cossus, Hiibner, Verz. bek. Schm., Newman, 
Cossus ligniperda, Fabricius; Stephens; Curtis, Brit. Ent., pl. 
This fine insect varies from 23 to nearly 3 inches in the expansion of the fore wings, which are of ashy- 
white clouded with brown, especially across the middle, and marked with an infinite number of slender, short, 
black, irregular streaks, forming a kind of net-work. The hind wings are brown, with darker and more 
obscure reticulations extending along the margins of the wings. 
The thorax is ochre-coloured in front, pale in the middle, and with a black bar behind; the abdomen is 
brown, with the margins of the segments pale yellowish grey, especially in the female. 
The caterpillar is of a dull yellowish fleshy hue, with dark chesnut scales on the back of each segment ; the 
head, and two triangular spots on the first segment of the body, black; it is naked, having only a few short 
scattered hairs upon the segments. It chiefly feeds upon willows and poplars, but will attack various other 
trees, boring into the solid wood, on which it subsists, and thus doing great damage to the timber ; indeed, 
young trees attacked by it are often rendered so weak that a violent gale of wind throws them down. This 
may be easily conceived, because when full grown it is as large as a man’s finger. It forms a rough cocoon of 
the chips of wood, which it has bitten to pieces, fastening them together with a glutinous secretion, and lining 
them with silk. The pupa has the head-case acute, and each of the abdominal segments is furnished with several 
rows of reflexed spiny hooks, which are of great service in enabling the pupa, shortly before arriving at the 
perfect state, to push itself through its cocoon, and to the surface of the tree; out of the aperture of which the 
exuvia may be seen partially sticking after the moth has escaped. 
This is one of the largest European moths, and its larva has been supposed by many authors to have been 
the celebrated Cossus of Pliny, which was considered in his time so great a dainty with the Roman epicures. 
Its offensive smell, however, and the power it has of discharging a fetid fluid at its persecutors, which causes 
pain, render it questionable whether the true Cossus was not the larva of some large wood-boring beetle. This 
insect has, however, acquired greater celebrity from having been selected by Lyonnet, the prince of entomological 
anatomists, as the subject of his magnificent work, “‘ Traité Anatomique de la Chenille qui ronge le Bois du 
Saule,” 4to. The Hague, 1760; in which the structure of the caterpillar was most elaborately investigated in 
every point of view, whilst the anatomy of the pupa and imago are similarly (but not so completely) treated in 
his posthumous “ Recherches sur l'Anatomie et les Métamorphoses de differents Insectes,” recently published. It 
will be sufficient, in order to give some idea of the careful manner in which the anatomy of this caterpillar has 
been studied in this work, to mention that Lyonnet discovered not fewer than 4061 muscles in its body ; 228 
being attached to the head, 1647 to the body, and 2186 to the intestines, whereas in the human body only 529 
have been discovered ; so that this caterpillar possesses nearly eight times as many muscles as are contained in 
the human frame. I may refer the reader to Kéllar’s work on obnoxious inseéts, (translated by Miss Loudon,) 
for many details of the natural history of this insect. 
The goat-moth is abundant in various parts of the country. It remains in the caterpillar state three years, 
the moth appearing in the months of June and July. 

