Insect transformations / [Anon].

  • James Rennie
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insect transformations / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    99/442 (page 83)
    It may appear a little paradoxical, though the doc- trine is sound, to assert that down and similar ma- terials are nearly as well calculated for protecting an animal from excessive outward heat as from severe cold. This, however, has been long well known as a fact to the Neapolitan peasantry, who convey snow from Mount Vesuvius to Naples in the summer for the purposes of luxury: they preserve it from melting by covering it with chaff and wool. It may not be out of place to remark that instances of this occur among insects, precisely similar to what we have just detailed respecting the g’ypsey moth. The brown-tail and the golden-tail moths (Porthesia aurijlua, and P. Chry- sorrh(Ba, Stephens), whose caterpillars spin themselves a warm nest before the setting-in of the winter colds*, seem no less careful to protect their eggs from the summer heats of July and August, at which time they are deposited. The down With which they are fur- nished for this purpose grows upon the tail of the female moth, in form of a thick tuft or brush, of a shining silky gloss, and of a different colour from the short hair on the body. It may be remarked that moths have only a mouth tube for sucking honey, and Females of tlie brown and gold-tailed moths, showing the bunch of down on the tails. * See Insect /irchitecture/’ p,329—33k