HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 465 



{C. duodecimpunctata, F.) differing in this respect from 

 all other known Coieoptera, live in moveable cases ^. 



Wax is the principal substance employed in the ha- 

 bitations of the larvae before mentioned'', occasionally 

 so destructive to bee-hives. These insidious depre- 

 dators, which are mentioned by Aristotle*^, tying toge- 

 ther, with silk, grains of wax (which, and not honey, 

 forms their food) construct galleries of a considerable 

 length, and thus concealed from the sight, and pro- 

 tected from the stings of the armed people whom they 

 have attacked, push their mines into the very heart of 

 the fortress, and pursue their robberies in perfect 

 safety '^ 



As many of the habitations which I have been de- 

 scribing, fit the body of the insects as close as a coat, 

 they might perhaps with more propriety be called 

 clothes. This is certainly the most appropriate desig- 

 nation of the abodes of some species of Tineas (the 

 clothes' moths), which not only cover themselves with 

 a coat, but employ the very same material in its com- 

 position as we do in ours, forming it of wool or hair 

 curiously felted together. Like us, they are born 

 naked, but not like us helpless at that period, scarcely 

 have they breathed before they begin to clothe them- 

 selves; thus contradicting Dr. Paley's assertion, that 

 " the human animal is the only one which is naked, and 

 the only one which can clothe itself":" and wisely in- 

 attentive to change of fashion, the same suit serves them 

 from their birth to mature age. The shape of their 



' Fucssly, Archiv. 5", t. 31. Germar's Mag.fiir Ent. i. 136, 

 '' Sep above, p. 165. " Aristo). Hist. Anim. 1. viii. c. 27. 



" Re;ium. iii. mem. 8. * Nat. Thcol. '2S0. 



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