166 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



our caterpillar, if it had not been disturbed, would have 

 spent the winter without eating ; but upon being removed 

 into a warm room and placed under a glass along with 

 some pieces of wood, which it might eat if so inclined, it 

 was roused for a time from its dormant state, and began to 

 move about. It was not long, however, in constructing a 

 new cell for itself, no less ingenious than the former. It 

 either could not gnaw into the fir plank, where it was 

 now placed with a glass above it, or it did not choose to 

 do so ; for it left it untouched, and made it the basis of the 

 edifice it began to construct. It formed, in fact, a coveiing 

 for itself precisely like the one from which we had dis- 

 lodged it, — composed of raspings of wood detached for the 

 purpose from what had been given it as food, the largest 

 piece of which was employed as a substantial covering and 

 protection for the whole. It remained in this retreat, mo- 

 tionless, and without food, till revived by the warmth of 

 the ensuing spring, when it gnawed its way out, and began 

 to eat voraciously, to make up for its long fast. 



These caterpillars are three years in arriving at their 

 final change into the winged state; but as the one just 

 mentioned was nearly full grown, it began, in the month 

 of ^lay, to prepare a cell, in which it might undergo its 

 metamorphosis. Whether it had actually improved its 

 skill in architecture by its previous experience we will not 

 undei-take to say, but its second cell was greatly superior 

 to the first. In the fiist there was only one large piece of 



Xest of Goat-Moth.— Figured from specimen, and raised to show the Pupa. 



wood employed ; in the second, two f)ieces were placed in 

 such a manner as to support each other, and beneath the 



