64 FABRE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



make his work impossible. What is required here is a flexible 

 neck, able to move in all directions. The collection of stakes, 

 therefore, ends suddenly at some distance from the fore- 

 part, and is there replaced by a collar where the silk lining 

 is merely hardened with very tiny particles of wood, which 

 strengthen the material without making it less flexible. This 

 collar, which allows of free movement, is so important that 

 all the Psyches use it, however greatly the rest of their work 

 may differ. All carry, in front of the bundle of sticks, a 

 yielding neck, soft to the touch, formed inside of a web of 

 pure silk and coated outside with a velvety sawdust, which 

 the Caterpillar obtains by crushing up any sort of dry straw. 



The same kind of velvet, but dull and faded apparently 

 through age finishes the sheath at the back, in the form 

 of a rather long projection, open at the end. 



When I remove the outside of the straw casing, shredding 

 it piece by piece, I find a varying number of laths, or tiny 

 sticks. I have counted as many as eighty, and more. Under- 

 neath it I find, from one end of the Caterpillar to the other, 

 the same kind of inner sheath that was formerly visible at 

 the front and back only. This inner sheath is composed 

 everywhere of very strong silk, which resists without break- 

 ing when pulled by the fingers. It is a smooth tissue, beauti- 

 fully white inside, drab and wrinkled outside, where it bristles 

 with a crust of woody particles. 



Later on we shall see how the Caterpillar makes himself 

 this complicated garment, formed of three layers, one placed 

 upon the other in a definite order. First comes the extremely 

 fine satin which is in direct contact with the skin ; next, the 

 mixed stuff dusted with woody matter, which saves the silk 

 and gives strength to the work ; and lastly the outer casing 

 of overlapping sticks. 



Although all the Psyches wear this threefold garment, 

 the different species make distinct variations in the outer 

 case. There is one kind, for instance, whom I am apt to meet 

 towards the end of June, hurrying across some dusty path 



