A FLASK-MAKER. 233 



beautifully shaded moth) to repose by day and fly by night, 

 till required, by one of the economies of nature, to furnish the 

 supper of a bat or owl. 



As the greatest Emperor of Russia was all the greater for 

 having once been, by choice, a shipwright, so the great 

 " Emperor *'' of moths is all the worthier of note for being 

 always, by birth, a " Flask -maker." The art by which he 

 works his way to the royalty of his winged estate may perhaps 

 be more properly considered as that of weaving, wherein he 

 shows himself, in truth, a king or deacon of his craft. 

 Having prepared for his labours by feeding on the tree, 

 usually a willow or black thorn,* which sheltered the infancy of 

 his caterpillar life, he begins, towards September, to prepare 

 himself a private chamber, but of no common construction, for 

 the mysterious process of transformation. The peculiar excel- 

 lence of this royal cocoon consists, firstly, in its texture, which 

 is of silk, so thickly woven as almost to resemble leather; 

 secondly, in the elegance of its shape, which has been com- 

 pared to that of a Florence flask ; and thirdly, in its singular 

 and ingenious formation. Instead of being wholly closed, 

 like the cocoon of the silk-worm and most others, this has a 

 small circular aperture formed at its upper end, by the con- 

 vergence of elastic narrow points. Within and beneath these, 

 and serving as a double defence, the imperial artificer weaves 

 also a canopy, which hangs suspended over his royal head while 

 wrapped in his aurelian slumber. When the time arrives for 



* We have had a specimen found and fed upon the strawberry. 



