256 MEANS OF DEFENCE OF INSECTS. 



tides of sand, fragments of wool or silk, and similar 

 matters, that the animal at first would be taken for one 

 of the ugliest spiders. This grotesque appearance is 

 aided and increased by motions equally awkward and 

 grotesque, upon whichI shall enlarge hereafter. If you 

 touch it with a hair-pencil or a feather, this cloth ing- 

 will soon be removed, and you may behold the creature 

 unmasked, and in its proper form. It is an insect of 

 prey ; and amongst other victims will devour its more 

 hateful congener the bed-bug a . Its slow movements, 

 combined with its covering, seem to indicate that the 

 object of these manoeuvres is to conceal itself from ob- 

 servation, probably, both of its enemies and of its prey. 

 It is therefore properly noticed under my present head. 

 As Hercules, after he had slain the Nemean lion, 

 made a doublet of its skin, so the larva of another insect 

 (Hemerobius Clirysops^ a lace- winged fly with golden 

 eyes,) covers itself with the skins of the luckless Aphides 

 that it has slain and devoured. From the head to the 

 tail, this pygmy destroyer of the helpless is defended by 

 a thick coat, or rather mountain composed of the skins, 

 limbs, and down of these creatures. Reaumur, in or- 

 der to ascertain how far this covering was necessary, re- 

 moved it, and put the animal into a glass, at one time 

 with a silk cocoon, and at another with raspings of pa- 

 per. In the first instance, in the space of an hour it 

 had clothed itself with particles of the silk : and in the 

 second, being again laid bare, it found the paper so 

 convenient a material, that it made of it a coat of un- 

 usual thickness 5 . 



a De Geer, iii. 283 Geoffr. Hist. Ins. i. 437- 

 * Reaum. iii. 391. 



