240 CARPENTERS. 



of incessant labour, completes for himself a habitation ot sugar- 

 loaf form, just large enough for his comfortable accommoda- 

 tion, and under cover of which he proceeds to perambulate his 

 world of wall, and regale on the vegetable viands with which 

 for him it is bespread. When the caterpillar portion of his 

 life is over, and he is about to enter on that quiescent state 

 which precedes the development of his perfect form, he 

 attaches to the wall, by silken cables, the hitherto moveable 

 tenement which has accompanied his rambles. Within the 

 interior of this now immoveable pyramid, he becomes a chry- 

 salis, and then, leaving it behind (a self-erected monument 

 and tomb of his remains), he ascends on his bronzed and 

 gilded pinions through an opening left for the purpose at 

 the top. 



From their employment of a material next in solidity to 

 stone, namely, wood, the " Carpenters " among moth opera- 

 tives would seem best placed after the " Masons," although 

 widely contrasted with the tiny builders last described both in 

 size and habits. At the head of this carpenter craft stands the 

 Cossus, or caterpillar of the Great Goat Moth 1 a large, 

 smooth, unsightly crawler of a lurid red and salmon colour, 

 black-headed and black-clawed, whose extensive galleries, 

 chiselled through solid trunk of willow, oak, and poplar, 

 attest him to be a mechanic of only too much industry. In 

 Middlesex and adjacent counties he drives especially a most 

 flourishing business. A carpenter is said to be "known by 

 his chips;" but the artizan in question, as if aware that his 

 operations are all trespasses, swallows (after the fashion of 

 some detected thieves) every particle of the saw-dust and 

 shavings which his trenchant jaws produce. In summer he is 

 content thus to proceed working and eating his way through 

 the winding wooden tunnels which afford him sufficient shelter 

 against all enemies wind and weather included ; but as soon 



1 Vignette. 



