FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



This collar, which allows of free movement, is so impor- 

 tant that all the Psyches use it, however greatly the rest 

 of their work may differ. All carry, in front of the bundle 

 of sticks, a yielding neck, soft to the touch, formed inside 

 of a web of pure silk and coated outside with a velvety 

 sawdust, which the Caterpillar obtains by crushing up 

 any sort of dry straw. 



The same kind of velvet, but dull and faded 

 apparently through age finishes the sheath at the back, 

 in the form of a rather long projection, open at the end. 



When I remove the outside of the straw casing, shred- 

 ding it piece by piece, I find a varying number of laths, 

 or tiny sticks. I have counted as many as eighty, and 

 more. Underneath it I find, from one end of the Cater- 

 pillar to the other, the same kind of inner sheath that 

 was formerly visible at the front and back only. This 

 inner sheath is composed everywhere of very strong silk, 

 which resists without breaking when pulled by the 

 fingers. It is a smooth tissue, beautifully white inside, 

 drab and wrinkled outside, where it bristles with a crust 

 of woody particles. 



Later on we shall see how the Caterpillar makes him- 

 self this complicated garment, formed of three layers, 

 one placed upon the other in a definite order. First 

 comes the extremely fine satin which is in direct contact 



[92] 



