278 THE INSECT WORLD. 



vineyards. The leaves of the vine are their favourite food, but they 

 attack the seeds of the grape also. As they increase in size every 

 day, the damage they do goes on increasing, and has not reached the 

 inaximum of intensity till the moment when the caterpillars are about 

 to change into chrysalides. They are then three-quarters of an inch 

 long and of a yellowish green colour. 



From the 20th of June to the loth of July they seek shelter in 

 the dry and interlaced leaves which have already served them for 

 places of refuge and partly also for food, or else they make them- 

 selves a fresh nest. 



At the end of two or three days, the caterpillar has become a 

 chrysalis (Fig. 289), which in a short time assumes a brown colour. 

 Shut up in the interior of the cocoon which the caterpillar had spun 

 before undergoing its metamorphosis, it changes into a moth at the 

 end of from fourteen to sixteen days. 



The best way to diminish the ravages of the pyralis is to pluck off 

 the leaves which are laden with eggs, and burn them, or bury them in 

 deep holes. 



Fig. 290, which we devote to the conspicuous insect whose 

 destructive history we have been here able to sketch only slightly, 

 gives all the particulars relating to this dangerous guest of the vine- 

 yards. On a branch of the vine may be perceived the pyralis in the 

 caterpillar state, the eggs which have been laid by the moths, the 



chrysalides, and perfect insects. The 

 eggs are shown at two periods of their 

 development. 



The Bee-hive or Wax Galleria is to 

 be met with in all countries where 

 bees are reared. 



The moth (Fig. 291) hides itself 

 ^ ''^"^^ during the day round about the bee- 



Fig. 291.— Galleria cereiia. hivcs, and cndeavours to make its way 



into them after sunset. The cater- 

 pillar is of a dirty white, with brown warty spots, each surmounted 

 by a fine hair. It lives on wax, twines its threads round the 

 honeycomb, and very soon causes the larvae contained in it to 

 perish. 



When it emerges from the ^%g^ which the female has laid in the 

 honeycomb, the caterpillar makes for itself with the wax a round 

 tube, in which it is safe against the stings of the bees. This tube, at 

 first very small, is lengthened and enlarged as the caterpillar increases 

 in size. It is generally from three to five inches in length. It is in 



