Fig. 245.—Dicranura vinula.
Another tribe of Bombycina comprises some very strange caterpillars, whose hindermost feet are changed into forked prolongations, which they move about in a threatening manner. These sort of fly-traps are perhaps meant to keep at a distance those insects which would lay their eggs upon the caterpillar's body. The caterpillars of Dicranura are of this kind. We give a representation of the caterpillar and the moth of the Puss Moth (Dicranura vinula, Figs. [244], [245]), as also the moth of the Dicranura verbasci, the former of which is common in England, and the larva may be found during the late summer and early autumn feeding on poplars and willows; and of the caterpillar of Stauropus fagi, the Lobster Moth ([Fig. 247]), rare in France, whose appearance is strange indeed. The moths, on the contrary, have nothing about them remarkable.
Fig. 246.—Dicranura verbasci.
Fig. 247.—Larva of the Lobster Moth (Stauropus fagi).