HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 297 



found in great abundance on mouldering walls, attributed to them the 

 power of eating stone, and regarded them as the authors of injuries pro- 

 ceeding solely from the hand of time ; for the insects themselves are so 

 minute, and the coating of grains of stone composing their cases is so 

 trifling, that Reaumur observes they could scarcely make any perceptible 

 impression on a wall from which they had procured materials for ages.^ 

 Another lepidopterous larva, but of a much larger size and different genus, 

 the case of which is preserved in the cabinet of the late President of the 

 Linnean Society, who pointed it out to me, employs the spines apparently 

 of some species of Mimosa, which are ranged side by side, so as to form 

 a very elegant fluted cylinder. A similar arrangement of pieces of small 

 twigs is observable in the habitation of the females^ of the larvae of a 

 moth referred by Von Scheven to Bombyx vestita F. (which Ochsenheimer 

 regards as synonymous with Psyche grominella) ; while P. Viciella of 

 the Wiener Verzeichniss covers itself with short portions of the stems of 

 grasses placed transversely, and united by means of silk into a five- or six- 

 sided case. The habitation of a third larva of the same family, described 

 and figured by Reaumur (P. ^ram/neZ/a Ochsenh., just named), is com- 

 posed of squarish pieces of the leaves of grass fastened only at one end, 

 and overwrapping each other like the tiles of a house ; and that of another 

 noticed by the same author, of portions of the smallest twigs of broom 

 arranged on the same plan.^ Indeed the larvae of the whole of this tribe 

 of moths, now separated into a distinct genus (Psyche Schrank, Ochsenh., 

 Fumea Haworth), but which, according to Germar, needs further subdi- 

 vision, reside in cases or sacks (whence they are called by the Germans 

 SacJctr'dger) composed of silk, and fragments of grass, bark, &c.^ 



The larvae of a small beetle (Clytra longimana) reside in oviform cases, 

 apparently of a calcareous or earthy substance, joined by a gummy 

 cement, and covered with red hairs, the origin of which Hiibner, who 

 first discovered them, could not account for; and from the observations of 

 Amstein and the French translator of Fuessly's Archives, it seems pro- 

 bable that the larvae of all the species of Clytra, and, according to 

 Zschorn, at least of one species of Cryptocephalus (C duodecimpunctatus^ , 

 live in moveable cases^; as do also the larvae of Chlamys, a splendid 

 Brazilian genus of the same family, and those of the equally brilliant 

 genus Lamprosoma, forming them of their excrement, which in the former 

 assume a singular appearance, from a very large and conical hollow mantle 

 fitted to the mouth of the case.^ The larvae of a species oi Limnius (L. 

 ceneus) inhabit a fixed case made of particles of stone or sand : and the 



1 Reaum. iii. 1S3. 



* The larvse of the males intermix with the pieces of twigs, which are less closely and 

 regularly arranged, bits of dried leaves and other light materials. See the excellent eluci- 

 dation of the history of this tribe, whose mode of generation is so singular, by Von Scheven, 

 in the Naturforscher, Stk. xx. 61., &;c. ; also a valuable paper by Dr. Zincken genannt 

 Sommer, in Germar's Mag.fur Ent. i. 19 — 40. 



3 Reaum. iii. 148, 149. n. 11. f. 10, 11. 



* In the hotter regions of the globe, this group is replaced by'the gigantic Oiketici, several 

 species of which have been figured by the late L. Guilding in the Transactions of the Lin- 

 naan Society. The cases of some of these insects exhibit an extraordinary degree of instinct 

 in their construction, and are of a much larger size than a hen's esg. (See Westw. Mod. 

 Class. Lis. ii. 388.) 



^ Fuessly, Archiv. 53. t. 31. Germar's Mag.filr Ent. i. 136. 

 ^ Westwood in Trans. Ent. Soc. Land. iii. proc. xxviii. 



