WALL- BUILDING. 317 



tion during their own trying time of change and state of torpor, 

 instead of, as with the mother bee and maternal-feeling ant, 

 having for their end the protection of their helpless young. 



Here, then, is a mason caterpillar* no " lean," but truly 

 a very fat, full-grown artificer, recently dislodged from under- 

 ground, together with his newly-made and hardly finished 

 habitation. The latter is of oval shape, very rough without, 

 very smooth within, and tapestried with silk. This we can 

 discern through a broken aperture at one end of the cocoon, and 

 through the same opening we can also see its occupant employed 

 even now in reparation of his damaged wall a wall it may 

 properly be called a wall of earthly particles, held together, 

 not by cement, but by silken threads ; for the builder before 

 us unites the art of weaving to that of masonry. A supply of 

 earth has been placed within his reach, and, taking grain after 

 grain in his forceps jaws, he fits them into the breach of his 

 cell, securing each with silk spun as required, the coarser 

 particles being selected for the outer, the finer for the inner 

 side of his wall. He has nearly closed the aperture ; but 

 what means he now by cessation of his grain-laying to collect 

 and carry in a portion of his provided material ? This he has 

 accomplished ; and now he proceeds to weave over the small 

 opening yet to close a thick silken net-work, into the meshes 

 of which he keeps thrusting from within grains of the earth, 

 which he had, evidently for this purpose, taken in, and, as he 



* Of the Watcr-Betony Moth : Cucullia Scrophularia. 



