200 Insect Architecture. 



moss, which they cut into suitable pieces, detaching at the 

 same time along with them a portion of the earth in which 

 they grow. They arrange these upon the walls of their 

 building, with the moss on the outside, and the earth on the 

 inside, making a sort of vault of the tiny bits of green moss 

 turf, dug from the surface of the wall. So neatly, also, are 

 the several pieces joined, that the whole might well be sup- 

 posed to be a patch of moss which had grown in form of an 

 oval tuft, a little more elevated than the rest growing on the 

 wall. When these caterpillars are shut up in a box with 

 some moss, without earth, they construct with it cells in form 

 *>f a hollow ball, very prettily plaited and interwoven. 



Moss-Cell of small Caterpillar (Bryophila perla f) 



In May last (1829), we found on the walls of Greenwich 

 Park a great number of caterpillars, whose manners bore 

 some resemblance to those of the grub described by M. 

 Reaumur. (J. E.) They were of middle size, with a dull- 

 orange stripe along the back; the head and sides of the 

 body black, and the belly greenish. Their abodes were 

 constructed with ingenuity and care. A caterpillar of this 

 sort appears to choose either a part where the mortar con- 

 tains a cavity, or it digs one suited to its design. Over the 

 opening of the hollow in the mortar it builds an arched 

 wall, so as to form a chamber considerably larger than is 

 usual with other architect caterpillars. It selects grains of 

 mortar, brick, or lichen, fixing them, by means of silk, firmly 

 into the structure. As some of these vaulted walls were 

 from an inch to an inch and a half long, and about a third 

 of an inch wide and deep, it may be well imagined that it 

 would require no little industry and labour to complete the 



