176 ' TENT-MAKERS. 



shaped pieces of the outer bark, cut out from the immediate 

 vicinity. Upon the two longest sides of the triangular base 

 he proceeds to build uniform walls, also of triangular shape, 

 and both, gradually diverging from each other as they increase 

 in height. When finished, the little architect proceeds to 

 draw them together by pulling them with silken cords till they 

 bend and converge and meet. When the two longest sides 

 are thus joined, an opening is still left at the upper and 

 broadest end of the triangle, which being filled up in a similar 

 manner, the building is complete" 1 without, and, when 

 tapestried with silk, is furnished within. This clever bark- 

 builder, for whose operations May is the usual season, is the 

 caterpillar of a moth. 2 



Next for the tent-makers those who, not living in the 

 streets, set up their lighter tabernacles on the verdant spots 

 the green parks of our embowered city ; in other words, upon 

 the foliage of the oak. These also are caterpillars, belonging 

 to a family of small moths, 3 which employ the leaves of 

 various trees not only for food, but also as material for the 

 construction of most curious and elegant abodes. " These 

 tents 4 are from a quarter of an inch to an inch in length, and 

 usually about the breadth of an oat-straw. They are of the 

 colour of a withered leaf, being cut out, not from the whole 

 thickness, but artfully separated from the upper layer, as a 

 person might separate one of the leaves of paper from a piece 

 of pasteboard." 



Next to these, and much more conspicuous on a survey of 

 our insect city, come the silken hammocks and their luxurious 

 occupants and weavers. These are 'also caterpillars those of 

 a moth in some years very common, called the " Brown-Tail." 5 

 Instead of, like the " tent-makers," working by themselves, 



1 Insect Architecture, p. 198. 2 Pyralis Strigularis. Kirby. 



3 Tineidce. 4 Vignette. 



5 Silken Hammock Weavers. Caterpillars of Brown Tail Moth (Porthesia 

 auriflua), and of Gold Tail, ditto. 



