238 SEED-BUILT FORTRESSES. 



moth caterpillar to clothe himself. With this felonious 

 intent, he burrows into the seed for the protection of which 

 the furry coat was originally designed, lines it with silk, 

 detaches it from the parent stem, then walks away clothed a la 

 Russe, to the annihilation of some incipient willow. These 

 vegetable muffs, with their insect appropriators, are sometimes 

 found floating on the waters beneath the pilfered tree, and it 

 is suggested by Rennie that the buoyant material of this muff- 

 like tent might be intended to furnish its little occupant with 

 a life-boat when blown from off its native willow. 



The heads of burdock, with which as troublesome hangers- 

 on most people arc acquainted, afford another and common 

 instance of the appropriation of seeds by moth caterpillars, 

 which convert them to the double purpose of food and fortifi- 

 cation. Every burr, or head of burdock, when arrived at 

 maturity, and divested of its hooked appendages, consists of a 

 collection of oblong, flattish, hard-coated, brown seeds, arranged 

 circularly, close together. Of these seeds we have been in 

 the habit of laying up a winter store for the consumption of 

 a pair of favourite gold-finches, which devour them with a 

 seeming relish inferior scarcely to that which they evince for a 

 meal of thistle or teazle-seed."* To separate this, their burdock 



* So very hard-coated are the seeds of the burdock, that after they have become 

 quite dry we have found it requisite to soak them in boiling water to render 

 their contents come-at-able by the bills of our goldfinches. The damp earth on 

 which they fall renders them no doubt equally accessible to biped consumers out 

 of doors. Goldfinches in a state of nature would seem to live wholly on the 



