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The Color of Animals: Chœrocampa

Another joined her, and then another, until at last there was a little company of ten or twelve birds, all looking on in astonishment, but not one ventured into (Chœrocampa porcellus). the tray; while one bird, which lit in it unsuspectingly, beat a hasty retreat in evident alarm, as soon as she perceived the caterpillar. After watching for some time, Weissmann removed it, when the birds soon attacked the seeds. Other caterpillars also are probably protected by their curious resemblance to spotted snakes.

Moreover, we may learn another very interesting lesson from these caterpillars. They leave the egg, as we have seen, a plain green, like so many other caterpillars, and gradually acquire a succession of markings, the utility of which I have just attempted to explain. The young larva, in fact, represents an old form, and the species, in the lapse of ages, has gone through the stage which each individual now passes through in a few weeks. Thus, the caterpillar of Chœrocampa porcellus, a species very nearly allied to the Elephant Hawk-moth, passes through almost exactly the same stages as that species. But it leaves the egg with a subdorsal line, which the caterpillar of the Elephant Hawk-moth does not acquire until after its first moult. No one can doubt, however, that there was a time when the new-born caterpillars of the small Elephant Hawk-moth were plain green, like those of the large one. Again, if we compare the mature caterpillars of this group of Hawk-moths, we shall find there are some forms which never develop eye-spots, but which, even when full grown, correspond to the second stage of the Elephant Hawk-moth. Here, then, we seem to have species still in the stage which the Elephant Hawk-moth must have passed through long ago. - The genus Deilephila, of which we have three species the Euphorbia Hawk-moth, the Galium Hawk-moth, and the Rayed Hawk-moth - is also very instructive.