214 Insect Architecture. 



difficulty be penetrated with the point of a penknife. 

 (J. R.) 



[One puss-moth larva, which I reared, made its nest in a 

 rather curious manner. After it had ceased feeding it had 

 been placed on a marble mantelpiece under a glass tumbler > 



Cell built by the Larva of the Puss-Moth. 



as a temporary residence until a more appropriate dwelling 

 could be found for it. But its instincts urged it to make 

 its nest without delay, and it accordingly set to work, and 

 spun itself up in a cocoon composed entirely of its own 

 silk, neither the glass tumbler or the mantelpiece affording 

 it any material with which to harden the walls of its 

 dwelling. 



[Consequently, the texture of the cocoon was of a rather 

 singular nature. The silken threads had been fused to- 

 gether so as to form a translucent cocoon, looking as if it 

 had been made of gelatine, and being nearly equally trans- 

 parent, the chrysalis being plainly visible through its walls. 

 The cocoon was thin and elastic, as if it had been made of 

 very thin horn ; and it was so tightly fixed to the mantel- 

 piece as well as to the tumbler, that it could not be removed 

 without damage. The moth suffered no injury from the 

 privation which the larva had to undergo. 



[The cocoons of the puss-moth are to be found upon the 

 trunks of trees, but they are so rough, and so greatly re- 

 sembling the bark, with which, indeed, their walls are 

 strengthened, that an inexperienced eye would fail to detect 

 them. Even when they have been pointed out to a novice in 

 practical entomology, he has failed to find them again when- 

 ever his eye has been taken off their rugged outlines.] 



A question will here suggest itself to the curious in- 



