226 NATURAL HISTORY. [CH. XIII. 



insect sufficient space for motion : but it is not con- 

 tent with the shelter of a bare wall, which would 

 inevitably chill it ; it therefore spins out of its own 

 bowels a thread, which in fineness infinitely sur- 

 passes that of the silk-worm. This thread it fastens 

 first to one place, and then extends it to a second, 

 crossing and interlacing it : by this means it hangs 

 all its apartment with a satin tinged with the colour 

 of pearls, and exquisite both in beauty and delicacy. 

 In this work all the propriety and convenience is 

 confined to the inside, for nothing appears without 

 but a little sand, which confounds and incorporates 

 the mansion with the contiguous earth. Here, in a 

 state of oblivion and tranquillity, it remains secluded 

 from the world for the space of about two months, 

 when it divests itself of its eyes, horns, paws, and 

 skin : its spoils sink to the bottom of the ball like a 

 heap of rags: all that now remains is a nymph, 

 which has other eyes and paws ; other entrails and 

 wings, enveloped in a second skin, and a nutritious 

 liquor which gradually strengthens the new animal. 

 When its new limbs have acquired their necessary 

 tone and activity, it tears away the tapestry of its 

 apartment and pierces through the walls ; for which 

 purpose it employs a couple of teeth like those with 

 which the grasshopper is furnished. Its efforts to 

 escape become now more strenuous; the opening 

 gradually enlarges ; half the body is first thrust out, 

 and at last the whole emerges. Its long body, which 

 at this moment winds like the volute of an Ionic ca- 

 pital, and fills only a space of about a quarter of an 

 inch, begins to unfold and expand itself, and in an 

 instant stretches to the length of an inch and a quar- 

 ter. Its four wings, which were contracted in little 

 folds, and whose dimensions did not exceed the sixth 

 part of an inch in the film that sheathed them, begin 

 to expand, and in the space of two minutes shoot 

 into a greater length than the whole body. In a 

 word the ravenous and malignant ant-lion assumes 



