181 



CHAPTER VIII. 



LEAF-ROLLING CATERPILLARS. 



THE labours of those insect-architects, which we have 

 endeavoured to describe in the preceding pages, have been 

 chiefly those of mothers to form a secure nest for their eggs, 

 and the young hatched from them, during the first stage of 

 their existence. But a much more numerous and not less 

 ingenious class of architects may be found among the newly- 

 hatched insects themselves, who, untaught by experience, and 

 altogether unassisted by previous example, manifest the most 

 marvellous skill in the construction of tents, houses, galleries, 

 covert-ways, fortifications, and even cities, not to speak of 

 subterranean caverns and subaqueous apartments, which no 

 human art could rival. 



The caterpillars, which are familiarly termed leaf-rollers, 

 are perfect hermits. Each lives in a cell, which it begins to 

 construct almost immediately after it is hatched ; and the 

 little structure is at once a house which protects the cater- 

 pillar from its enemies, and a store of food for its subsist- 

 ence, while it remains shut up in its prison. But the insect 

 only devours the inner folds. The art which these cater- 

 pillars exercise, although called into action but once, perhaps, 

 in their lives, is perfect. They accomplish their purpose 

 with a mechanical skill, which is remarkable for its sim- 

 plicity and unerring success. The art of rolling leaves 

 into a secure and immovable cell may not appear very 

 difficult : nor would it be so -if the caterpillars had fingers, 

 or any parts which were equivalent to those delicate and 

 admirable natural instruments with which man accomplishes 

 his most elaborate works. And yet the human fingers could 

 not roll a rocket-case of paper more regularly than the 

 caterpillar rolls his house of leaves. A leaf is not a very 



