460 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



intermediate portions, carefully avoiding the larger 

 nerves of the leaf; afterwards they sew up the detached 

 sides more closely, and only intersect the nerves when 

 their labour is completed''. — The habitation made by 

 a Tinea, which lives upon a species of Astragalus^ is 

 in like manner formed of the epidermis of the leaves, 

 but in this several corrugated pieces project over each 

 other, so as to resemble the furbelows once in fashion''. 

 Other larvae construct their habitations wholly of 

 silk. Of this description is that of a Tinea, whose 

 abode, except as to the materials which compose it, is 

 formed on the same general plan as that just described, 

 and the larva in like manner feeds only on the paren- 

 chyma of the leaf. In the beginning of spring, if you 

 examine the leaves of your pear-trees, you will scarcely 

 fail to meet with some beset on the under surface with 

 several perpendicular downy russet-coioured project- 

 tions, about a quarter of an inch high, and not much 

 thicker than a pin, of a cylindrical shape, with a pro- 

 tuberance at the base, and altogether resembling at first 

 sight so many spines growing out of the leaf. You would 

 never suspect that these could be the habitations of in- 

 sects ; yet that they are is certain. Detach one of them, 

 and give it a gentle squeeze, and you will see emerge 

 from the lower end a minute caterpillar w ith a yellow- 

 ish body and black head. Examine the place from which 

 you have removed it, and you will perceive a round 

 excavation in the cuticle and parenchyma of the leaf, 

 the size of the end of the tube by which it was concealed. 

 This excavation is the work of the above-mentioned 

 caterpillar, which obtains its food by moving its little 



"Reaum.iii. 100-120, " Ibid. 145, 



