2o8 TRUE TALES OF THE INSECTS. 



interior is lined with soft silk, and interwoven silky 

 threads likewise bind together the externeJ fragments. 

 In the building materials chosen, and their arrange- 

 ment, Mettira elongata is a most interesting architect (see 

 Fig. 39). Strengthening the large, elongate ovate bag 

 of silk, and worked into it irregularly, appear numerous 

 rows of short sticks, rather distantly separated, and about 

 half an inch long, generally speaking ; but towards the 

 lower end there are usually several sticks from one to 

 four inches long, in the centre of which the lower end of 

 the silken bag protrudes, free from sticks, and very flexible. 

 It has a charming silky softness, and is of a grey, ash, 

 or mouse colour. Of this beautiful tissue the upper or 

 head extremity is also composed; forming a tube half 

 an inch wide. In the case of the Lictor Moth {Entoiiieta 

 ignobilis), consisting of a cylindrical bundle of slender 

 bits of straight twig, about an inch in length, the sticks, 

 as in the previous instance, are fixed longitudinally by 

 the whole inner side to the flexible silken lining ; the 

 title Lictor is suggested by the resemblance between the 

 cases and the fasces, or bundle of rods, borne by the 

 lictors of old before the consuls. But a third Australian, 

 A nimula huebnci'i hy r\3.n\Q, has a case covered extern- 

 ally with a vast number of very slender twigs affixed to 

 it by one end only, the other being free. Here we 

 perceive an admirable piece of instinct, the loose points 

 of the twigs being always directed backwards, so that 



