HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 455 



little circular holes frequently met with in ancient fur- 

 niture and the wood-work of old houses ; and many 

 larvae of other orders, particularly Lepicloptera. One 

 of these last, the larva of 5o>w??y.c Cossus, differs from 

 its congeners in fabricating for its residence during 

 winter a habitation of pieces of wood lined with fine 

 silk^. Under this division, too, come the singular ha- 

 bitations of the subcutaneous larvae, so called from the 

 circumstance of their feeding upon the parenchyma 

 included between the upper and under cuticles of the 

 leaves of plants, between which, though the whole 

 leaf is often not thicker than a sheet of writing-paper, 

 they find at once food and lodging. You must have 

 been at some time struck by certain white zigzag or 

 labyrinth-like lines on the leaves of the dandelion, lilac, 

 and numerous other plants ; the next time you meet 

 with one of them, if you hold it up to the light you will 

 perceive that the colour of these lines is owing to the 

 pulpy substance of the leaf having there been remov- 

 ed ; and at the further end you will probably remark 

 a dark-coloured speck, which, when carefully extri- 

 cated from its covering, you will find to be the little 

 miner of the tortuous galleries which you are admi- 

 ring. Some of these minute larvae, to which the pa- 

 renchyma of a leaf is a vast country, requiring seve- 

 ral weeks to be traversed by the slow process of mining 

 which they adopt — that of eating the excavated mate- 

 rials as they proceed — are transformed into beetles 

 {Curculio Thapsus, &c.) ; others into flies ; and a still 

 greater number into very minute moths of the genus 



^ Lyonet, Jnat. of Coss. 9, 



