Puss-Moth. 213 



silk it first wove a thin web round the edges of the place 

 which it marked out for its edifice , then it ran several 

 threads m a spare manner from side to side, and from end 

 to end, but very irregularly in point of arrangement ; these 

 were intended for the skeleton or frame- work of the build- 

 ing. When this outline was finished, the next step was to 

 strengthen each thread of silk by adding several (sometimes 



Rudiments of the Cell of the Puss-Moth. 



six or eight) parallel ones, all of which were then glued 

 together into a single thread, by the insect running its 

 mandibles, charged with gluten, along the line. The 

 meshes, or spaces, which were thus widened by the com- 

 pression of the parallel threads, were immediately filled 

 up with fresh threads, till at length only very small spaces 

 were left. It was in this stage of the operation that the 

 paper came into requisition, small portions of it being 

 gnawed off the box and glued into the meshes. It was not, 

 however, into the meshes only that the bits of paper were 

 inserted ; for the whole fabric was in the end thickly 

 studded over with them. In about half a day from the 

 first thread of the frame-work being spun the building was 

 completed. It was at first, however, rather soft, and 

 yielded to slight pressure with the finger ; but as soon as 

 it became thoroughly dry, it was so hard tjiat it could with 



lid of the box, and might effect its escape, he furnished it with bits of rumpled 

 paper, fixed to the lid by means of a pin -, and these it chopped down into such 

 pieces as it judged convenient for its structure, which it took a day to complete. 

 The moth appeared four weeks after, of a brownish-black colour, mottled with 

 white, or rather grey, in the manner of lace. 



Bonnet also mentions more than one instance in which he observed cater- 

 pillars making use of paper, when they could not procure other materials. 



