INTRODUCTION. 77 



with the rest of their kind ; many live in societies for 

 some time after they are hatched, but separate as 

 they grow up ; while others continue together all 

 the time they are caterpillars, even undergoing their 

 metamorphoses in company, and not scattering till 

 they acquire wings. The habitations which they 

 construct, and many particulars in their economy, 

 depend to a certain extent on their habits in this 

 respect, and in noticing this branch of their history, 

 perhaps the most interesting that belongs to it, we 

 shall first describe some of the most remarkable 

 structures of solitary caterpillars, and next advert to 

 those formed by the combined exertions of several. 

 The habitations of the former sort are either 

 formed by the union of separate pieces, sometimes 

 of different materials, or more simply by folding or 

 rolling together the leaves of plants ; and they are 

 designed either for the protection of the caterpillar 

 during its lifetime, or the reception of the chrysalis 

 into which it is subsequently converted. Several 

 form a covering for their bodies similar to that of 

 the Phryganidae, or Case-flies, with which they move 

 about like a snail or any other of the shell-bearing 

 molluscae. Of these one of the most curious is the 

 larvae of a small Tinea, which has not unaptly been 

 named the stone-mason caterpillar. It forms a 

 sheath for its body, or a kind of moveable tent, by 

 agglutinating into a compact structure, small particles 

 of stone detached from the wall on which it lives. 

 This miniature tent is of a conical shape, somewhat 

 curved, open at both ends, and borne rather obliquely. 



