The Psyches: the Cases 



woven between the edges of the rent. That 

 is what our tailors do; but it is not the Psy- 

 ches' method at all. They know something 

 much better. They keep on working at their 

 coat, which is old at the back, new in front 

 and always a perfect fit for the growing body. 



Nothing is easier than to watch the daily 

 progress in size. A few caterpillars have just 

 made themselves a hood of sorghum-pith. 

 The work is perfectly beautiful ; it might have 

 been woven out of snow-flakes. I isolate 

 these smartly-dressed ones and give them as 

 weaving-materials some brown scales chosen 

 from the softest parts that I can find in old 

 bark. Between morning and evening, the 

 hood assumes a new appearance: the tip of 

 the cone is still a spotless white, but all the 

 front part is coarse drapery, very different in 

 colouring from the original plush. Next day, 

 the sorghum felt has wholly disappeared and 

 is replaced, from one end of the cone to the 

 other, by a frieze of bark. 



I then take away the brown materials and 

 put sorghum-pith in their stead. This time 

 the coarse, dark stuff retreats gradually to- 

 wards the top of the hood, while the soft, 

 white stuff gains in width, starting from the 



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