462 HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. ^ 



be held so closely to the leaf as to require a nuich 

 stronger effort to loosen it. As if aware that, should 

 the air get admission from below, and thus render a va- 

 cuum impracticable, the strongest bulwark of its for- 

 tress would be destroyed, our little philosopher care- 

 fully avoids gnawing- a hole in the leaf, contenting itself 

 with the pasturage afforded by the parenchyma above 

 the lower epidermis ; and when the produce of this area 

 is consumed, it gnaws asunder the cords of its tent, and 

 pitches it at a short distance as before. Having at- 

 tained its full growth, it assumes the pupa state, and 

 after a while issues out of its confinement a small brown 

 moth, with long hind legs, the Phalcena Tinea serratdla 

 of Linnet 



Some larva?, which form their covering of pure silk, 

 are not content with a single coating, but actually en- 

 velop themselves in anotlier, open on one side andvery 

 much resembling a cloak; whence Reaumur called 

 them " Teignes a fourreau a manteau.^^ What is very 

 striking in the construction of this cloak, is, that the 

 silk, instead of being woven into one uniform close tex- 

 ture, is formed into numerous transparent scales over- 

 Avrapping each other, and altogether very much resem- 

 bling the scales of a fish ''. These mantle-covered cases^ 

 one of which I once had the pleasure of discovering, 

 are inhabited by the larva of a little moth apparently 

 first described by Dr. Zinke, genannt" Sommer, who 

 calls it Tinea palliatella. 



Various substances besides silk are fabricated into 



* Goczc Natur. MenschenJebcnuml Vorsehung. Anderson's Recreations^ 

 ii. 409, Sec above p. 16. 



" Reaum. iij. 206. Plate XVII. Fio. 9. 

 ■^ Germar''i Mag-fiir Enlomolo^ie, i.40. 



