78 NATURAL HISTORY. [CH. IV. 



that whenever any accident has happened to the 

 case, so as to lacerate or tear it in holes, the little 

 animal repairs with incredible expedition whatever 

 damage may have been received, so that in a few 

 hours it fills up a large hole with the same silky 

 substance, and this with an exactness so perfect that 

 the nicest eye cannot discern what was the extent of 

 the injury. It is likewise stated to experience the 

 different changes to which the caterpillar tribe are 

 subject: these changes are not however described; 

 but the late Rev. Lansdown Guilding, to whom nat- 

 ural history is under many obligations, succeeded 

 in tracing the transformations of two kindred spe- 

 cies, inhabitants of the West Indies, and has pub- 

 lished the result of his very singular observations 

 in the " Linnaean Transactions." From these we 

 learn that the insect produced from one of these 

 cases proved to be a moth which nearly resembled 

 our English wood-leopard {Zeuzera <25cwZi),lhat the 

 female is very large and unwieldy, without wings, 

 and that she never quits her case 



CHAPTER IV. 



NATURAL HISTORY OF THE SILKWORM MOTH. 



Description of the Egg — Caterpillar — Manner of changing its Skin 

 — Sizes from the young to the full-grown Worm — Description of 

 the latter — Silk-bags— Manner of forming its Cocoon — Length 

 of the Silk — Description of the Chrysalis — the Moth — its Habits 

 — number of Eggs. 



The silkworm, like all other insects of the same 

 class, undergoes a variety of changes during the 

 short period of its life ; assuming, in each of its 

 three successive transformations, a form wholly 



