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pillars ; others to that of worms. They cannot bear to 

 be naked; and it is for the sake of covering themselves 

 that they insinuate themselves between the two foldings 

 of a leaf. They find their subsistence there at the same 

 time. They eat the pulp of it, and in eating, trace out 

 a way for themselves. Some dig there strait or crooked 

 trenches. These are gallery miners. Others mine 

 round about them, in circular Or oblong spaces, these 

 are miners at large. Their teeth are the instruments 

 they mine with ; but some \vomi-miners dig by means 

 of two hooks resembling our pick-axes. Several of 

 these insects spin within the mine, the cone wherein 

 they are to transform themselves. Others quit the mine, 

 and metamorphose themselves elsewhere. Butterflies 

 that proceed from a mining caterpillar, are little mira- 

 cles of nature. She has lavished gold, silver, and 

 azure upon them ; with other colours that are more or 

 less rich ; though we regret that she has not performed 

 these master-pieces in a more extensive form. 



8. But miners have something still more wonderful to 

 offer us. Bestow your attention on those vine leaves 

 that are before you. They are pierced with oval holes 

 which seem to be made in them by a gimblet. The 

 mining caterpillars bored these holes, by stripping two 

 pieces of skin from the leaf, with which they make a 

 cone : that cone is there placed perpendicularly on a 

 vine-prop, at a pretty considerable distance from the 

 leaf that furnished the materials. How was it cut, 

 fashioned, detached, and conveyed 1 Let us not vainly 

 attempt to guess this : let us rather endeavour to sur- 

 prise the industrious labourer on her working bench. 

 She mines ly way of gallery, and constructs her cone at 

 the extremity of the gallery. It is composed of two pieces 

 of leaf of an oval form, very thin, even, and like each 

 other. The caterpillar prepares these places ; makes of 

 them a thin texture, by clearing them of the pulp; she 

 models them, lines them with silk, cuts them with her 

 teeth, as with scissars, joins and unites them. They al- 

 ready have no connection with the leaf, notwithstanding 



