HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 4:63 



the moth (Tinea), which incorporates wool or hair art- 

 fully cut from our clothes or furniture, with silk drawn 

 from its own mouth, into a warm and thick tissue : and 

 as this would not be soft enough for its tender skin, it 

 also lines the inside of its coat with a layer of pure silk. 

 Since this suit of clothes during the earliest age of the 

 insect accurately fits its body, you will readily conceive 

 that it will frequently require enlarging. This the little 

 occupant accomplishes as dexterously as any tailor. If 

 the case merely requires lengthening, the task is easy. 

 All that is needful is to add a new ring of hair or wool 

 and silk to each end. But to enlarge it in width is not 

 so simple an affair. Yet it sets to work precisely as we 

 should, slitting the case on the two opposite sides, and 

 then adroitly inserting between them two pieces of the 

 requisite size. It does not, however, cut open the case 

 from one end to the other at once : the sides would se- 

 parate too far asunder, and the insect be left naked. It 

 therefore first cuts each side about half way down, and 

 then after having filled up the fissure proceeds to cut 

 the remaining half: so that, in fact, four enlargements 

 are made, and four separate pieces inserted. — The co- 

 lour of the habit is always the same as that of the stuff 

 from which it is taken. Thus, if its original colour be 

 blue, and the insect previously to enlarging it be put 

 upon red cloth, the circles at the end and two stripes 

 down the middle will be red. If placed alternately upon 

 cloths of different hues, its dress will be parti-coloured 

 like that of a Harlequin. — The injury occasioned to us 

 by these insects is not confined to the quantity of mate- 

 rials consumed in clothino^ and feedintj themselves. In 

 moving from place to place they seem to be as much in- 



