235 



we ar apt to fancy that we are looking at an inlaid 

 floor, or a piece of inlaid work. 



5, The most solitary of all insects are such as live in 

 the inside of fruits. Each fruit lodges only one cater- 

 pillar, or worm : we are ignorant of the cause of this 

 remarkable fact. We only know, that a curious ob- 

 server having attempted to cause caterpillars of this 

 species to live together, they furiously engaged each 

 other as often as they met : it is then inconteslibly true, 

 that the disposition of these caterpillars is anti-sociable. 

 Several have metamorphosed themselves in the very 

 fruit that has served them for a retreat and for provi- 

 sion ; they dig cavities in it, which they line with silk, 

 or in which they spin their cones. Others, which are 

 the greater part of them, quit the fruit, and metamor- 

 phose themselves in the earth. 



6. Those insects that roll up or fold the leaves of a 

 great number of plants, are also perfect hermits : this 

 proceeding is common to many caterpillars. They thus 

 procure for themselves little cells, which are convenient 

 lodgings tor them, in which they are always sure to find 

 nourishment, for they eat the walls of the cell ; but 

 they are always very careful never to touch that part 

 which is destined to cover them. The different me- 

 thods in which these caterpillars lodge themselves, give 

 room for distinguishing them into tyers, folders, and 

 rollers. 



Tlie art of the tyers is in general the most simple. It 

 consists in joining several leaves together with silk 

 threads, in order to form them into one entire parcel, in 

 the centre of which is the lodge of the little hermit. 



The procedure of the folders supposes more refied 

 operations. They fold the leaves either in the whole, 

 or in part. In the whole, when the portion folded is 

 turned back flat upon another part of the leaf: and in 

 part, when they only simply bend the leaf more or less. 



But the labour of the rollers is most of all to be ad- 

 mired. They liv* in a kind of roll, whose dimensions, 



