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CHAPTER VIII. 



LEAF-ROLLIXG CATERPILLAES. 



The labours of those insect-architects, which we have 

 endeavoured to describe in the preceding pages, have 

 been chiefly those of mothers to form a secure nest for 

 their eggs, and the young hatched from them, during the 

 first stage of their existence. But a much more numerous 

 and not less ingenious class of architects may be found 

 among the newly-hatched insects themselves, who, un- 

 taught by experience, and altogether unassisted by pre- 

 vious example, manifest the most marvellous skill in the 

 construction of tents, houses, galleries, covert-ways, forti- 

 fications, and even cities, not to speak of subterranean 

 caverns and subaqueous apartments, which no human art 

 could rival. 



The caterpillars, which are familiarly termed leaf-rollers, 

 are perfect hermits. Each lives in a cell, which it begins 

 to construct almost immediately after it is hatched ; and 

 the little structure is at once a house which protects the 

 caterpillar from its enemies, and a store of food for its sub- 

 sistence, while it remains shut up in its prison. But the 

 insect only devours the inner folds. The art which these 

 caterpillars exercise, although called into action but once, 

 perhaps, in their lives, is perfect. They accomplish their 

 purpose with a mechanical skill, which is remarkable for 

 its simplicity and unerring success. The art of rolling 

 leaves into a secure and immovable cell may not appear 

 very difficult : nor would it be so if the caterpillars had 

 fingers, or any parts which were equivalent to those deli- 

 cate and admirable natural instruments with which man 

 accomplishes his most elaborate works. And yet the 

 human fingers could not roll a rocket-case of paper more 

 regularly than the caterpillar rolls his house of leaves. A 

 leaf is not a very easy substance to roll. In some trees it 



