THE PUSS-MOTH. 535 



creature is small, and the house of no great weight, it is carried nearly upright ; but when 

 it attains size and consequent weight, it lies flat and is dragged along in that attitude. 

 The entrance of this curious habitation is so made that the sides can be drawn 

 together, and whenever the creature feels alarmed, it pulls its cords and so secures itself 

 from foes. 



In this domicile the transformations take place, and from its aperture the male insect 

 emerges when it has assumed its perfect form, and takes to flight. But the female behaves 

 in a very different manner. According to the ancient maxim, she stays at home and 

 takes care of her house, from which she never emerges, nor indeed can she emerge, as she 

 has no external vestige of wings, and looks more like a grub than a moth ; the head, 

 thorax, and abdomen being hardly distinguishable from each other. Love and courtship 

 with this insect are carried on quite in an Oriental fashion, pushed to extremes ; for 

 whereas the Oriental in many cases never sees the face of his veiled bride until after the 

 nuptial ceremony is completed, the House-builder never sees his mate either before or 

 after marriage, and so is obliged either to love blindly or not at all. Perhaps, considering 

 the peculiar ungainliness of his spouse, he is rather fortunate than otherwise in the fate 

 which forbids him to contemplate the charms that lie hidden behind the dense curtain 

 that shrouds the nuptial couch, and which, but for the mystery that surrounds them, 

 might inspire any feeling rather than that of affection. 



The grub-like female is seen lying on the ground, just below the flying figure of the 

 male insect. It will be noticed that, except for the feathered body, the creature looks 

 more like a larva than a perfect insect. Owing to the resemblance which these remark- 

 able insects bear to the fasces which were borne by the lictors before Ptoman consuls, one 

 species has been termed the Lictor-moth. The Singhalese appropriately call them by a 

 name that signifies billets of firewood, and believe that the insects were once human 

 beings who stole firewood while on earth, and are forced to undergo an appropriate 

 punishment in the insect state. About five species of House-builder Moths are known. 



The LOBSTER-MOTH derives its name from the grotesque exterior of the caterpillar. 

 As may be seen by reference to the illustration,' this larva is one of the oddest, 

 imaginable forms, hardly to be taken for a caterpillar by one who was not acquainted 

 with it. The apparently forced and strange attitude in which this caterpillar is 

 represented is that which it assumes when at rest. The second arid third pair of legs 

 are much elongated. The moth itself displays no very notable points of structure except 

 the raised tufts on the disc of the fore wings. 



The second example if this family belongs to the typical genus of the first sub-family, 

 and is one of the Prominent-moths, so called on account of the prominent tufts on the 

 inner margin of the upper wings. Several species of this genus are found in England, 

 and that which is figured has only lately been discovered in this country. Its general 

 colour is white. In most of these insects the larva is decorated with hairs or projections, 

 and the structure of the perfect insect is so uncertain that systematic entomologists have 

 been and still are greatly troubled about their proper arrangement 



The well-known TIGER-MOTH (Arctia caja), with its red and brown colouring, is a well 

 known example of* this family, and its caterpillar is no less familiar under the name of 

 Woolly Bear. This is a very harmless creature, feeding almost wholly on the dead nettle, 

 but some of its allies are terrible plagues to the agriculturist, or even to the country at large, 

 having been known to inflict serious damage to crops, and in some parts of Germany even 

 to strip whole forests of their foliage. 



One of these insects, called the VAPOURER-MOTH (Orgyia antiqua), is especially 

 remarkable for the strange contrast between the sexes, the male being a wide- winged 

 moth of the ordinary kind, and the female a fat grub-like creature with hardly a vestige 

 of wing, and scarcely stirring from the spot on which it is placed. The well-known PUSS- 

 MOTH (Centra vinula), so called because its markings bear some resemblance to those of 

 a tabby cat^ belongs to this family. The caterpillar of this moth is a handsomely coloured 

 creature, remarkable for the odd, sphinx-like attitude which it assumes when at rest, the 

 pink St. Andrew's cross which is drawn over the back, and the forked appendage at the 



