84 ON THE HABITATIONS AND 



small brown moth, with long legs, the Ptial&na Tinea 

 Serratilla of Linne.* 



Sir James Smith, late president of the Linnean 

 Society, had in his cabinet the case of a lepidopterous 

 larva, which was composed of the spines of some 

 species of ]\fimosa, which were ranged side by side, so 

 as to form a very elegant fluted cylinder. The male 

 caterpillars intermix with the pieces of twigs, which 

 are less closely and regularly arranged, bits of dried 

 leaves, and other light materials. The larva of the 

 Bombyx vestita forms a similar habitation of pieces 

 of small twigs ; and the Tinea viciella covers itself 

 with short pieces of the stems of grasses, placed 

 transversely, and united by means of silken filaments 

 into a pentagonal, or hexagonal, case. Reaumur 

 describes the domicile of a caterpillar of the same 

 family, which is composed of square pieces of the 

 leaves of grasses, united at one end only, and overlap- 

 ping each other like the imbricated tiles of a roof j and 

 he notices another, similarly constructed, of minute 

 portions of the twigs of broom, f 



The Tinea lichenum forms pieces of lichen into a 

 house, resembling in shape some of the turreted snail 

 shells. Mr Kirby noticed many of them on an oak 

 at Barham, in June, 1812. Another caterpillar of 

 the Tinea, which likewise feeds on lichens, does not 

 frame its habitation of them, like the last mentioned 

 species, but connects together, with silken cement, 



* ANDERSON'S Recreations, ii. 409. 

 f REAUMUR, iii. 148-9. 



