278 INSECTS. 



former tent), and waiting the awakening. To him the 

 undulating streak upon the bramble leaf, no thicker 

 than a hair in its beginning, but widening, river-like, in 

 its onward course, tells of a visit from a glorious little 

 sylph in gold and purple robes. The sylph is gone, bat 

 she has left behind her an almost invisible living atom 

 an egg, which, hatched, gives birth to an equally invisible 

 little creature a " caterpillar." Fully furnished with ap- 

 paratus for eating and for digesting, this loses no time in 

 setting about his labour of love ; and beginning to eat the 

 green pulp between the cuticles, injuring neither cuticle, 

 he is safely housed as it might seem from every danger. 

 And now, in the widening sinuous track, our Entomo- 

 logist sees his invisible little glutton growing fatter and 

 fatter, and requiring more room. He can imagine the out- 

 grown skin burst and laid aside, and replaced by a newer 

 and larger garment from within, and this perhaps again 

 and again, till, like his little tent-making friend, this also 

 drops to the ground, spins a silken shroud, and takes his 

 long winter repose.* 



What is the little shred of white silk ? It may be the 

 remains of the cunningly-devised cell of a Hunting-Spider, 

 or it may be a silken shroud spun by some Caterpillar in 

 which to sleep the sleep from which will come so glorious 

 an awakening perhaps it may be both the emptied 

 shroud of the Caterpillar (how emptied ?), now occupied 

 as a house, a den, a " parlour/' by the Spider and, 

 perhaps, in a fragment of pupa case, or cast Spider-skin ; 

 the whole history may be plainly read when both the 

 living occupants are gone. Once more. This jagged 



* If the mine be white it is empty, if but little discoloured the miner is 

 probably within. 



