60 Transactions. 



in all probability you may see a number of these little fellows 

 suddenly drop from their tube dwellings and swaying about 

 in the breeze till the danger is past, when a general scramble 

 takes place among them, as if they were trying who was to 

 be first home. The same sort of thing may be seen by 

 taking a walk on the sheltered side of a thorn hedge on a 

 windy day, when you may see a number of little green cater- 

 pillars, belonging to the Tortricince and Tineince, tossed 

 about by the wind till the storm is past, when they regain 

 their former place in the same way. If the thorn hedge is 

 nearly in a line with your head, you will feel the silk threads 

 tickling your face as you go along, the product of these small 

 catei-pillars blown out by the wind. The Leafminers belong 

 to the Micro-Lepidoptera, the smallest and minutest of all 

 known examples of the moth tribe. They are a part of the 

 great family of the Tineince, a class of insects so minute and 

 so numerous that the study of their habits has now become 

 quite a new branch of insect lore. The Leafmining larvae, 

 however, do not all belong to the Micro-Lepidoptera ; some 

 are the larva of small flies, while others are the larva of very 

 minute beetles. The mining course which some of them 

 pursue is very curious. Some of the species mine a broad 

 track mostly near the centre of the leaf. Sometimes you 

 will find two caterpillars in one leaf, and when this is the 

 case you will invariably find that each larva keeps side or 

 part of the leaf ; although I have sometimes seen the mine 

 very tortuous and confused by the paths running into each 

 other, and sometimes even crossing each. Some other 

 species, again, seem to prefer the very edge of the leaf ; and 

 when this is the case, it is truly wonderful to see with what 

 exactness they can skirt them, ^s if they were working or 

 tracing out some plan. Some idea of the size of the 

 creature may be easily imagined : when full grown they can 

 mine a path round and round the centre of a thin leaf, with- 

 out ever once breaking the upper or lower surface of the 

 leaf. Here is a process of engineering the most perfect of 

 its kind, performed by a creature scarcely larger than the 



