194 INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



Bonnet, " as any tailor, and sets to work precisely as we 

 should do, slitting the case on the two opposite sides, and 

 then adroitly inserting between them two pieces of the 

 requisite size. It does not, however, cut open the case 

 from one end to the other at once ; the sides would 

 separate too far asunder, and the insect be left naked. 

 It therefore first cuts each side about half-way doMoi, 

 beginning sometimes at the centre and sometimes at the 

 end (Fig. c), and then, after having filled up the fissure, 

 proceeds to cut the remaining half ; so that, in fact, four 

 enlargements are made, and four separate pieces inserted. 

 The colour of the case is always the same as that of the 

 stuff from which it is taken. Thus, if its original colour 

 be blue, and the insect, previously to enlarging it, be put 

 upon red cloth, the circles at the end, and two stripes 

 down the middle, will be red." * Eeaumur found that 

 they cut these enlargements in no precise order, but some- 

 times continuously, and sometimes opposite each other, 

 indifferently. 



The same naturalist says he never knew one leave its 

 old dwelling in order to build a new ; though, when once 

 ejected by force from its house, it would never enter it 

 again, as some other species of caterpillars will do, but 

 always preferred building another. We, on the contrary, 

 have more than once seen them leave an old habitation. 

 The very caterpillar, indeed, whose history we have above 

 given, first took up its abode in a specimen of the ghost- 

 moth (Hepialus humuli), where, finding few suitable mate- 

 rials for building, it had recourse to the cork of the drawer, 

 with the chips of which it made a structure almost as 

 warm as it would have done from wool. Whether it took 

 offence at our disturbing it one day, or whether it did not 

 find sufficient food in the body of the ghost-moth, we know 

 not ; but it left its cork house, and travelled about eighteen 

 inches, selected " the old lady," one of the largest insects 

 in the drawer, and built a new apartment, composed partly 

 of cork as before, and partly of bits dipt out of the moth's 

 wings. (J. R.) 



* BoniiL't, vol. ix. p. 203. 



