162 HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS. CHAP. T. 



greenhouse plants,, as being covered, some with a white 

 powder, and another species with fine brown dust, so 

 exactly resembling the bark, that even an entomological 

 eye may be deceived by the resemblance. Among crabs, 

 which, as being annulose animals, come under the 

 general name of insects, this method of concealment 

 is peculiarly strong. Several of the long-clawed species 

 dress themselves up in little fragments of sea- weed ; and 

 thus disguised, both from their enemies and their prejf, 

 they move among the Fuel, and other marine plants, in 

 perfect safety to themselves, and without the least sus- 

 picion to those lesser animals upon which they feed. The 

 whole family of the hermit crabs conceal themselves in 

 empty shells, where they take up their permanent abode, 

 and crawl about with their defence upon their backs. 



(182.) Caterpillars, from the delicacy of their skin, 

 are more especially subject to injury; hence we find 

 that Nature protects them, either by long and compact, 

 or dense and silky, hairs, by clothing them in the precise 

 colour of the leaves upon which they feed, or by giving 

 them the instinct of concealing themselves. This latter 

 method is performed in two ways, either by the whole 

 brood of caterpillars spinning a common web, like a large 

 tent, under which all the community, for a part of their 

 lives, reside ; or, by teaching every individual to roll 

 itself up in a leaf, so as to be completely hidden, and 

 inaccessible to its enemies. Now, the whole of the 

 Hesperidce, or skipping butterflies, are protected in this 

 manner ; and those little moths, which Linnaeus placed 

 in his section Tortrix, do the same in their larva state. 

 The caterpillars of the Phryganida, or cad-worms, so 

 common in streams and ponds of water, inclose them- 

 selves in moveable tubes, and crawl about, like their 

 representatives, the hermit crabs, at the bottom of the 

 watery element. Many conceal themselves in the flowers 

 upon which they feed ; and the male of a little bee 

 (Apis campanularum K.) dozes voluptuously in the 

 bells of the different species of Campanula. Certain 

 bees and wasps (as Apis varicyata Lin., and Nomada 



