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CHAPTER IV. 



ON THE HABITATIONS AND ARCHITECTURE OF MOTHS. 



THERE is not a more interesting or remarkable 

 department of our inquiry than the habitations and 

 architecture of the tribe of moths. They are endowed 

 with an unerring foresight or instinct, by which each 

 species forms for itself a nest or habitation, con- 

 structed, in many instances, upon the most philoso- 

 phical principles. The Linnaean genus Phaltena, or 

 Moth, contains a vast number of species, scarcely 

 two of which build nests alike. 



The caterpillars of the Nycterobius, before alluded 

 to as an inhabitant of New Holland, excavate for 

 themselves holes in trees, especially in that splendid 

 tribe, the BanJcsia ; and to which they frequently prove 

 very destructive, owing to the numerous cavities 

 they make. They have a most ingenious method of 

 defending the entrance of their abode from the attacks 

 of the Mantes, by a kind of trap- door of leaves and 

 excrement, interwoven with silky filaments, which 

 they fasten firmly at top, but leave unattached at the 



