462 HABITATIONS Of INSECTS. 



cies of Ltmnius {L. ceneus) inhabiting a fixed case made 

 of particles of stone or sand. 



Wax is the principal substance employed in the habi- 

 tations of the larvae before mentioned*, occasionally so 

 destructive to bee-hives. These insidious depredators, 

 which are mentioned by Aristotle •'j tying together, with 

 silk, grains of wax (which, and not honey, forms their 

 food), construct galleries of a considerable length, and 

 thus concealed from the sight, and protected from the 

 stings of the armed people whom they have attacked, 

 push their mines into the very heart of the fortress, and 

 pursue their robberies in perfect safety*^. 



As many of the habitations which I have been descri- 

 bing, fit the body of the insects as close as a coat, they 

 might perhaps with more propriety be called clothes. 

 This is certainly the most appropriate designation of the 

 abodes of some species of Tineaj (the clothes' moths), 

 which not only cover themselves with a coat, but employ 

 the very same material in its composition as we do in 

 ours, forming it of wool or hair curiously felted together. 

 Like us, they are born naked, but not like us helpless 

 at that period, scarcely have they breathed before they 

 begin to clothe themselves ; thus contradicting Dr. Pa- 

 ley's assertion, that " the human animal is the only one 

 which is naked, and the only one which can clothe 

 itself'* :" and wisely inattentive to change of fashion, the 

 same suit serves them from their birth to mature age. 

 The shape of their dress is adapted to that of their body 

 — a cylindrical case open at both ends. The stuff of 

 which it is composed is the manufacture of the larva of 



* See above, p. 165. ^ Aristot. Hist. Anim. 1. viii. c. 27. 



" Reaura. iii. mem. 8. ^ Nat. Theol. 230. 



