NATURAL HISTORY. 37 



one of these animal tailors that cut his gar- 

 ment out of cloth : pray tell us of him." 



" When I said that, boys, I was thinking of 

 the clothes-moth.* They make their coats 

 of wool commonly taken from our cloth, and 

 silk drawn from their own mouths ; and the 

 strangest thing concerning them is, that when 

 they outgrow their clothes they will piece 

 them to make them larger. Suppose the in- 

 sect wants it longer, it adds a new ring of 

 wool to the end : suppose it wants it wider, it 

 slits the case or garment, not from one end to 

 the other, for this would leave it naked, but it 

 splits it half-way down the sides, and when it 

 has filled it in with proper pieces, it splits the 

 remaining half, and puts other pieces in them. 

 There is another curious thing about this 

 tailor : it always makes its coat of the same 

 colour with the cloth from which it takes the 

 wool ; so that if it has first made its garment 

 of a piece of blue cloth, and is placed on a 

 bit of red cloth when it wishes to enlarge it, 

 you will see its work exactly, for the pieces 

 which it puts in will be red. This is the little 

 fellow, boys, which does so much mischief to 

 our clothes." 



* Tinea sarcitella . 

 D 



