of the most, brilliant carmine, from amongst the
hairs of which, if the thorax be touched, some
minute drops of acrid water issue. Other
lepidopterous insects are more fiercely demonstrative.
The caterpillar of the Swallow-tail
Butterfly (Papilio Machaon) has a horn, half an
inch in length, which it darts out on being
pressed. The horn smells strongly of fennel,
than which nothing can be more obnoxious
(hear it, ye mackerel eaters!), and is probably
employed by the insect to drive away the flies
that annoy it. Some there are that bully their
antagonists instead of actually showing fight.
"When first the naturalist Rosel saw the
caterpillar of the Puss-moth, he stretched out his hand
with great eagerness to take the prize; but
when, in addition to its grim attitude, he beheld
it dart forth its menacing catapulta, apprehending
they might be poisonous organs, his courage
failed him. At length, without touching the
monster, he ventured to cut off the twig to
which it clung, and dropped it into a box. It
must be admitted, however, that there is
something remarkably ferocious in the aspect and
attitudes of certain caterpillars. Some lepidopterous
larvae, that fix the one-half of the body and
elevate the other (how, as a child, I have shuddered
at this movement), agitate the elevated part,
whether it be the head or the tail, as if to strike
what disturbs them. The great caterpillar of
a large American moth (B. regalis) is armed
behind the head and at the back of the anterior
segments with seven or eight strong curved
spines, from one-half to three-fourths of an inch
in length. Mr. Abbott tells us that this cater-
pillar is called in Virginia the hickory-horned
devil, and that, when disturbed, it draws up its
head, shaking or striking it from side to side;
which attitude gives it so formidable an aspect
that no one, he affirms, will venture to handle it,
people in general dreading it as much as a rattle-
snake. Another caterpillar of a moth, noticed
by Reaumur, whenever it rests from feeding,
and apprehends danger, turns its head over its
back, then become concave, at the same time
elevating its tail, the extremity of which remains
in a horizontal position, with two short horns,
like ears, behind it, as much as to say, " Now,
where will you have me?" Thus the six
anterior legs are in the air, and the whole animal
looks like a quadruped in miniature, the tail
being its head the horns its ears and the
reflexed head simulating a tail curled over its
back. In this seemingly unnatural attitude it
will remain without motion for a very long
time, " willing to wound, yet afraid to strike."
The caterpillars of some hawk-moths (which
derive the name of Sphinx, from their inscrutable
and menacing attitudes), particularly that
which feeds upon the privet, when they
repose, holding strongly with their fore-legs the
branch on which they are standing, rear the
anterior part of their body so as to form nearly
a right angle with the posterior; and in this
position they will remain perfectly tranquil
thus eluding the notice of its enemies or
alarming them perhaps for hours. Réaumur
relates that a gardener, in the employment of
the celebrated Jussieu, used to be quite
discontented by the self-sufficient air of these
animals, saying they must be very proud, for he
had never seen any other caterpillars hold their
heads so high. Some caterpillars have, for
defensive purposes, the faculty of dropping from a
branch, as though dead, when approached,
spinning at the same time a web like a spider,
"either," remarks Mr. Noel Humphreys, one
of our most observant entomologists, " to break
their fall or to serve as a means of reascent
when the danger is over." The skunk-like
property in others of exuding globules which emit
a foetid odour, is also noticed by the same authority,
who adds that the liquid is reabsorbed, " to
serve on another occasion, directly the present
danger is over" a proceeding on the part of
the caterpillar which indicates a very strong
economical tendency, which is highly to be
commended, an honest thrift being always praise-
worthy. To be passively defensive is not,
however, the characteristic of all caterpillars. The
larvae of the Nycterobius, being of opinion that
every one's house is his castle, form for their
dwellings cylindrical holes in the trees of New
Holland, defending the entrance against other
carnivorous insects, not by a portcullis exactly,
but by a sort of trap-door, composed of silk
interwoven with leaves, securely fastened at the
upper end, but left loose at the lower for the
free passage of the occupant. This abode they
regularly quit at sunset, for the purpose of
laying in a store of the leaves on which they feed.
These they drag by one at a time into their cell,
until the approach of light, when they retreat
precipitately into it, enjoying the booty which
their nocturnal vigilance has provided. One
species lifts up the loose end of the door with its
tail, and enters backwards, dragging after it a
leaf of the Banksia serrata, which it holds by the
footstalk. If you wish, like Ulysses, to punish
this nocturnal robber, and give yourself a
(questionable) treat, you may imitate the New
Hollanders, who feed largely on the Nycterobius.
To eat caterpillars is, indeed, a common
practice in many countries. The Bosjesmen at
the Cape of Good Hope do so, esteeming them
great delicacies, and the Chinese similarly
dispose of the larvae of the hawk-moth, which Dr.
Darwin says are " very delicious." In
Herrick's " Hesperides," Puck

His kitling eyes began to run
Quite through the table, where he spies
The horns of papery butterflies,
Of which he eats.

It may argue, perhaps, the greatest amount
of fear which the human mind is capable of
showing, to be frightened at a moth; but there
is some excuse for the superstition that
believes the Sphinx Atropos, with its mournful
cry and the sinister death's-head marked upon
its back, to be a messenger of evil. In Brittany,
that land of superstition, the Sphinx Atropos
creates the greatest consternation. In the year
seveuteen hundred and thirty an immense