Fig. 194.—Larva of the Death's-head Hawk-Moth (Acherontia atropos).
The caterpillar of the Acherontia atropos ([Fig. 194]) is the largest of all European caterpillars. It attains to as much as four and a half inches in length by eight lines in diameter. Its colour is lemon yellow, which changes into green on the sides and belly. From the fourth to the tenth ring inclusively it is ornamented laterally with seven oblique bands of an azure blue, which are tinted with violet, and bordered with white on the side. These bands joining together over the back of each segment resemble so many chevrons placed parallel to each other. The body is, moreover, dotted with black. At its extremity is a yellow horn, curved back like a hook, and covered with tubercles. The head is green, and marked laterally with a black stripe. It lives chiefly on the potato, and the Lycium barbarum, sometimes called the tea-tree, a shrub belonging to the Solanaceæ. It buries itself in the earth to change into a chrysalis ([Fig. 195]) of a bright chestnut brown.
Fig. 195.—Chrysalis of the Death's-head Hawk-Moth.
