A FLASK-MAKER. 241 



as the gales of autumn whistle through the thinned branches of 

 the trunk he inhabits, he begins to provide himself with a 

 more seasonable habitation. With this intent he widens a 

 portion of his gallery into a roomy chamber, and, no longer 

 satisfied with bare wooden walls, proceeds, by the exercise of 

 his native skill in weaving, to hang them with an impervious 

 tapestry, composed of the raspings of wood scooped out 

 of the cell and united with strong silk. In this snug dormi- 

 tory he passes the winter, in an idle fast, to resume his labours 

 and feed with the return of spring ; for this master Carpenter 

 is a long liver, working, and literally living by his work, for 

 the space of three years. At the end of this period he casts 

 aside his working (or caterpillar) garb, and after an aurelian 

 slumber, passed in a summer cell, lined with a lighter tapestry 

 than that occupied in winter, he thence emerges a dark-brown 

 beautifully shaded moth. 



As the greatest Emperor of Russia was all the greater for 

 having once been, by choice, a shipwright, so the great 

 " Emperor " of moths is all the worthier of note for being 

 always, by birth, a "Flask-maker." The art by which he 

 works his way to the royalty of his winged estate may perhaps 

 be more properly considered as that of weaving. Having 

 prepared for his labours by feeding on the tree, usually a 

 willow or black thorn, 1 which sheltered the infancy of his 

 caterpillar life, he begins, towards September, to prepare 

 himself a private chamber, but of no common construction, for 

 the mysterious process of transformation. The peculiar excel- 

 lence of this royal cocoon consists, firstly, in its texture, which 

 is of silk, so thickly woven as almost to resemble leather; 

 secondly, in the elegance of its shape, which has been com- 

 pared to that of a Florence flask ; and thirdly, in its singular 

 and ingenious formation. Instead of being wholly closed, 

 like the cocoon of the silk-worm and most others, this has a 



1 We have had a specimen found and fed upon the strawberry. 



