iio The Field Naturalist' s Qtiarterly May 



of the Puss Moth. I have studied the hfe-history of this 

 insect pretty closely/ but was not chemist enough to tell 

 how the perfected moth contrived to escape from its cocoon, 

 which is kneaded by the caterpillar's salivary glands from 

 chips of wood and sawdust into the consistency of virgin 

 wood, and is so hard that a really strong knife is requisite 

 to impress it. Mr Oswald Latter has subsequently, how- 

 ever, pointed out that the chemical secreted by the perfect 

 insect is so strong a solution of potassium hydroxide that 

 it actually melts this solid case, and the moth quietly 

 stalks forth through the hole thus effected. Many beetles 

 too, when they come to maturity, find themselves so deep 

 in timber that they have literally to eat their own way to 

 freedom ; and I have recently heard of a Wood-boring Wasp 

 which found itself in the "roller" of a piece of cloth. 

 Nothing daunted, it gnawed clean through the whole 

 "length," much to the detriment of the latter, and on 

 another occasion to that of a boy's purse, whence the 

 prisoner won its way through two thicknesses of leather ! 

 But these species, possessed of jaws, such as the Goat 

 Moth's caterpillar, which will burrow through anything 

 from lead to seasoned mahogany, could not effect such 

 prodigious feats if not assisted by softening chemical fluids. 



Every spring brings its little fairies, but how many does 

 it leave behind it ! As eggs and caterpillars thousands are 

 destroyed by birds, as pupae other thousands by mice and 

 moles ; then, having attained a perfect state, they are still 

 attacked by bats, nightjars, and the ruthless hand of civil- 

 isation, which, arrogating to itself artificial methods, loudly 

 declaims when it finds Nature — in which all things work 

 together for good — still keeps the even tenor of her way. 

 The Leather Beetle, which removed obnoxious carrion, preys 

 upon our tanneries ; the Turnip-Flea and Cabbage-Butterfly, 

 which kept Crucifercc in check, infest our vegetables ; Tiny 

 Moths, which demolished outworn birds' nests, attack my 

 lady's furs ; and Bot Flies still drive mad our poor half- 

 tamed herds of deer and oxen, as erstwhile was their wont 

 when lordly droves of their progenitprs roamed free through 

 forest, fell, and ford. 



^ Cf. ' Science Gossip,' 1893, p. 38. 



