168 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



sleep securely during the winter. As we liave, oftener 

 tliaii once, seen this little architect at work, from the 

 foundation till the completion of its edifice, we are thereby 

 enabled to give the details of the process. 



The puss, it may be remarked, does not depend for pro- 

 tection on the hole of a tree, or the shelter of an overhang- 

 ing branch, but upon the soliditj^ and strength of the fabric 

 which it rears. The material it commonly uses is the bark 

 of the tree upon which the cell is constructed ; but when 

 this cannot be procured, it is contented to employ what- 

 ever analogous materials may be within reach. One which 

 we had sliut up in a box substituted the marble paper it 

 was lined with for bark, which it could not procure.* 

 With silk it first wove a thin web round the edges of the 

 place which it marked out for its edifice ; then it ran 

 several threads in a spare manner from side to side, and 

 from end to end, but very irregularly in point of arrange- 



* It is justly remarked by Ee'aumur, that when caterpillars are left 

 at liberty among their native plants, it is only by lucky chance they 

 can be observed building their cocoons, because the greater number 

 abandon the plants upon which they have been feeding, to spin up in 

 places at some distance. In order to see their operations, they must be 

 kept in confinement, particularly in boxes with glazed doors, where 

 they may be always under the eye of the natmalist. In such circum- 

 stances, however, we may be ignorant what building materials we 

 ouglit to provide them with for their structures. A red caterpillar, with 

 a few tufts of hair, which Re'aumur found in July feeding upon the 

 flower bunches of the nettle, and refusing to touch the leaves, began in 

 a few days to prepare its cocoon, by knawing the paper lid of the box 

 in which it was placed. This, of course, was a material which it could 

 not have prociu-ed in the fields, but it was the nearest in properties that 

 it could procure ; for, though it had the leaves and stems of nettles, it 

 never used a single fragment of either. AVhen Ee'aumur found that it 

 was likely to gnaw through the paper lid of the box, and might eftect 

 its escape, he furnished it with bits of rumpled paper, fixed to the lid 

 by means of a pin ; and these it chopped down into such pieces as it 

 judged convenient for its structure, which it took a day to complete. 

 The moth appeared four weeks after, of a brownish-black coloiu-, mottled 

 with white, or rather grey, in the manner of lace. 



Bonnet also mentions more than one instance in which he observed 

 caterpillars making use of i^aper, when they could not prociu'e other 

 materials. 



