HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 459 



pulled off, the silken cords giving way to a very slight 

 force ; but if, proceeding gently, you give the insect time 

 to retreat, the case will be held so closely to the leaf as 

 to require a much stronger effort to loosen it. As if 

 aware that, should the air get admission from below, and 

 thus render a vacuum impracticable, the strongest bul- 

 wark of its fortress would be destroyed, our little philo- 

 sopher carefully avoids gnawing a hole in the leaf, con- 

 tenting itself with the pasturage afforded by the paren- 

 chyma above the lower epidermis ; and when the pro- 

 duce of this area is consumed, it gnaws asunder the cords 

 of its tent, and pitches it at a short distance as before. 

 Having attained its full growth, it assumes the pupa 

 state, and after a while issues out of its confinement a 

 small brown moth, with long hind legs, the Phalcena 

 Tinea serratella of Linne a . 



Some larvae, which form their covering of pure silk, 

 are not content with a single coating, but actually enve- 

 lop themselves in another, open on one side and very 

 much resembling a cloak ; whence Reaumur called them 

 " Teignes dfourreau a manteau" What is very striking 

 in the construction of this cloak, is, that the silk, instead 

 of being woven into one uniform close texture, is formed 

 into numerous transparent scales over-wrapping each 

 other, and altogether very much resembling the scales 

 of a fish b . These mantle-covered cases, one of which 

 I once had the pleasure of discovering, are inhabited 

 by the larva of a little moth apparently first described 

 by Dr. Zincken genannt Sommer, who calls it Tinea 

 palliatella c . 



a Goeze Natur. Menschenleben und Vorsehung. Anderson's Recre- 

 ations, \\. 409. See above p. 16. 



b Reaum. Hi. 206. PLATE XVII. FIG. 9. 

 Germar's Mag, fur Entomologie, i. 40. 



