e
subject, but after I had brought the matter before the Entomological
Society, two gentlemen, who kept birds and other tame animals, undertook
to make experiments with a variety of caterpillars.

Mr. Jenner Weir was the first to experiment with ten species of small
birds in his aviary, and he found that none of them would eat the
following smooth-skinned conspicuous caterpillars--Abraxas
grossulariata, Diloba caeruleocephala, Anthrocera filipendula, and
Cucullia verbasci. He also found that they would not touch any hairy or
spiny larvae, and he was satisfied that it was not the hairs or the
spines, but the unpleasant taste that caused them to be rejected,
because in one case a young smooth larva of a hairy species, and in
another case the pupa of a spiny larva, were equally rejected. On the
other hand, all green or brown caterpillars as well as those that
resemble twigs were greedily devoured.[94]

Mr. A.G. Butler also made experiments with some green lizards (Lacerta
viridis), which greedily ate all kinds of food, including flies of many
kinds, spiders, bees, butterflies, and green caterpillars; but they
would not touch the caterpillar of the gooseberry-moth (Abraxas
grossulariata), or the imago of the burnet-moth (Anthrocera
filipendula). The same thing happened with frogs. When the gooseberry
caterpillars were first given to them, "they sprang forward and licked
them eagerly into their mouths; no sooner, however, had they done so,
than they seemed to become aware of the mistake that they had made, and
sat with gaping mouths, rolling their tongues about, until they had got
quit of the nauseous morsels, which seemed perfectly uninjured, and
walked off as briskly as ever." Spiders seemed equally to dislike them.
This and another conspicuous caterpillar (Halia wavaria) were rejected
by two species--the geometrical garden spider (Epeira diadema) and a
hunting spider.[95]

Some further experiments with lizards were made by Professor Weismann,
quite confirming the previous observations; and in 1886 Mr. E.B. Poulton
of Oxford undertook a considerable series of experiments, with many
other species of larvae and fresh kinds of lizards and frogs. Mr.
Poulton then reviewed the whole subject, incorporating all recorded
facts, as well as some additional observations made by Mr. Jenner Weir
in 1886. More than a hundred species of larvae or of perfect insects of
various orders have now been made the subject of experiment, and th