TAILORING ANIMALS 



One sees how naturally the fragments of leaf and twigs 

 are put on when once the method is observed. When 

 the larva seizes its food it bastes it to the mouth of her 

 bag by the liquid silk exuded. From time to time un- 

 eaten particles are rejected, and, being fastened to the 

 rim of the case, simply drop along the side. As the larva 

 eats and grows, the rim rises higher, and each succeed- 

 ing increment gets its girdle of dangles. When the bag- 

 worm is full grown it loops itself to a branch, shuts up 

 the mouth of its sack, passes into the pupa state, and in 

 due time transforms. 



In tailoring establishments the cutting department 

 represents the highest trained skill. To plan a garment 

 and then cut its various parts from the stuff is distinctly 

 the work of a finer intelligence than to put the parts 

 together. It may be forcing analogies too far, but at 

 least it is a fancy that lies close to fact that the highest 

 order of insects, the Hymenoptera, contains species that 

 cut from the leaves of plants a covering for their young, 

 which pieces they unite upon a fixed and traditional but 

 apparently premeditated plan. The cutting or parasol 

 ants may be grouped with these species, and the leaf- 

 cutting bee has even a better claim to the first honors 

 in the cutters' association of their guild. Her brooding- 

 nest is a tapestried tube made in soft wood, in the pith 

 of an elder-stalk, the hollow of a tree, an opening in an 

 old wall, the shelter of a cornice, or a hole in the ground. 

 Having chosen and arranged her quarters, she proceeds 

 to get material to drape its walls. You may see her 

 then, squat upon a rose-leaf, revolving upon her feet 

 wliile she uses her jaws as scissors, thus clipping out a 

 circular patch, which she carries to her quarters. The 

 piece is thrust into the tube, with the serrated edge, it 



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