STONE-MASON CATERPILLARS. 



190 



nothing but the upper membrane nntonched. (J. E.) 

 During the summer of 1830 we discovered a very large 

 tent which had been formed out of a blade of grass ; 

 and another stuck all over with chips of leaves upon the 

 common maple. 



Tents of Stone-Mason Caterpillars. 

 The caterpillar of a small moth {Tinea) which feeds upon 

 the lichens growing on walls, builds for itself a moveable 

 tent of a very singular kind. M. de la Voye was the 

 first who described these insects ; but though they are 

 frequently overlooked, from being ver}^ small, they are 

 by no means uncommon on old walls. Eeaumur observed 

 them regularly for twenty years together on the terrace- 

 wall of the Tuileries at Paris ; and they may be found in 

 abundance in similar situations in this country. This 

 accurate observer refuted by experiment the notion of 



Lichen-Tents and Caterpillars, both of their natural size and magnitied. 



M. de la Voye that the caterpillars fed upon the stones 

 of the wall ; but he satisfied himself that they detached 

 particles of the stone for the purpose of building their 

 tents or sheaths (fourreaux), as he calls their dwellings. 

 In order to watch their mode of building, Eeaumur gently 

 ejected half-a-dozen of them from their homes, and ob- 

 served them detach grain after grain from a piece of stone, 

 binding each into the wall of their building with silk 

 till the cell acquired the requisite magnitude, the whole 

 operation taking about twenty-four hours of continued 



