222 INSECT TRANSFORMATIONS. 



heritage for one of these tiny insects; but he con- 

 fesses he never saw such contests.* When the 

 caterpillar has eaten its way into the interior of the 

 grain, it feeds on the farina, taking care not to gnaw 

 the skin nor even to throw out its excrements, so that 

 except the little hole, scarcely discernible, the grain 

 appears quite sound. When it has eaten all the 

 farina, it spins itself a case of silk within the now hol- 

 low grain, and changes to a pupa in November. | 



Two other caterpillars of a difierent family, the 

 honeycomb moth (^GaUeria ccreana, Fabr.), and the 

 honey moth {G. alvearia, Fabr.), the first having 

 square, and the second rounded wings, J do very 

 considerable damage to the hives of bees. The 

 moths of both, according to Reaumur, appear about 

 the end of June or beginning of July; and when in 

 danger they run rather than fly, gliding with such 

 celerity that they can easily elude the vigilance of 

 the bees, which, indeed, if we may trust Swam- 

 merdam, never attack them, nor prevent their en- 

 trance into the hives, unless they chance to brush 

 against them in their passage. But Rtaumur ac- 

 tually saw the bees pursue one, though without 

 success. It becomes easy for a moth, at all events, 

 to lay eggs among the combs; or as Keys says, at 

 the entrance of the hive: this writer adds, 'she 

 spins a close and strong web to defend the young ;'§ 

 which is impossible, as no insect, subsequent to its 

 larva state, can spin. 



The caterpillar of the first species, ' wherever it 

 passes,' says Swammerdam, ' gnaws round holes 

 through the waxen cells, one caterpillar sometimes 

 breaking open and destroying fifty or sixty cells, 



* See Insect Architecture, p. 231. 



+ R< aumur, Mem., vol. ii, p. 486, &c. 



i Stephens's Catalogue, vo). ii, p. 213. 



§ Keys, Trpatise on Bees, p. 17S, edit. 1814. 



