LEAF-MINERS. 



slight tenure of a fragile foot-stalk ; but compared with theirs, 

 indeed,, without comparison his lot seems a highly favoured 

 one. His path, a covered way, is through a leaf, often of the 

 rose ; and each step of progression (for labour he has none) 

 would seem an act of self gratification, as the little Sybarite, 

 lodged between the upper and the lower membranes of the leaf, 

 eats onwards through its soft green pulp, from the point whence 

 he issued from the egg even to that which terminates his 

 caterpillar career. Thus eating and progressing, he produces, 

 by removal of the excavated pulp, a visible track, appearing on 

 the leafs surface like a broad white tortuous line, with a dark 

 one running through its centre. This has been compared to 

 a valley watered by a winding stream a " happy valley," we 

 may well suppose it, to its little solitary inhabitant, because, 

 unlike the Abyssinian Prince, he knows no wish to leave it. 

 And truly, as we have said, the leaf-mining caterpillar would 

 seem to have drawn a prize in the lottery or allotment of insect 

 life, inasmuch, at least, as his covered position serves as a 

 defence from various perils and enemies to which some of his 

 brethren are openly exposed, and from which others (as he of 

 the "tent" and the "roll") are only protected by laborious 

 exertion of mechanic skill. 



On first waking into life, the leaf-miner finds himself, through 

 the exercise of maternal care instinctively and prospectively 

 employed, placed on the surface of his green patrimony, the 

 leaf exactly suited to Ins appetite, into the depths of which (a 



