148 



TRANSFORMATIONS OF INSECTS. 



pierce into a leaf or a seed, and begin to mine. After a while, and 

 when the caterpillars have grown to a certain size, they leave 

 their solitary mine, eat through the skin of the leaf, and appear 

 on the surface. They divide the leaf, and sew one part on to 

 another, and make themselves a comfortable tube. So readily do 

 these caterpillars make a protecting case, that they do not care 



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I 



-Hi/' 



COCOONS OF BRAZILIAN Tbldna. 



much about repairing old ones, or enlarging their small homes ; 

 on the contrary, they leave the old and take refuge in new leafy 

 houses very constantly, after having eaten the best part of the 

 former. Some eat grain, and, after having cleared out the interior 

 of one, find in the skin a most convenient case. 



The last segment of the abdomen of the caterpillars of the Colco- 

 pJior(Z is horny, and so is the second of the body, for this hardness 

 of structure is much required by case-bearing insects, on account of 

 the friction and pressure of the two ends of the tube. The pupae 



