394 STRANGE DWELLINGS. 



made its tube, it can be shifted to a black cloth, and when it 

 has cut the longitudinal slit, and has half filled it up, it can be 

 transferred to a piece of scarlet cloth, so that the comple- 

 mentary colours of green and scarlet are brought into juxtapo- 

 sition, and ' thrown up ' by the contrast with the black. 



The caterpillar is not very particular as to the kind of material 

 which it employs, and on which it feeds. Mr. Rennie makes the 

 following observations on one of these creatures, whose proceed- 

 ings he had watched. ' The caterpillar first took up its abode 

 in a specimen of the ghost-moth {Hepialus hwnuli)^ where, find- 

 ing few suitable materials for building, it had recourse to the 

 cork of the drawer, with the chips of which it made a structure, 

 almost as warm as it would have done from wool. Whether it 

 took offence at our disturbing it one day, or whether it did not 

 find sufficient food in the body of the ghost-moth, we know not; 

 but it left its cork house, and travelled about eighteen inches, 

 selected the " old lady " moth {Mormo maurd)^ one of the largest 

 insects in the drawer, and built a new apartment, composed 

 partly of cork as before, and partly of bits clipped out of the 

 moth's wings. 



' We have seen these caterpillars form their habitations of 

 every sort of insect, from a buttei-fly to a beetle, and the soft, 

 feathery wings of moths answer their purpose very well ; but 

 when they fall in with such hard materials as the musk-beetle, 

 or the large scolopendra of the West Indies, they find some 

 difficulty in the building. 



' When the structure is finished, the insect deems itself secure 

 to feed on the materials of the cloth, or other animal matter 

 within its reach, provided it is dry and free from fat or grease, 

 which Reaumur found it would not touch. For building, it 

 always selects the straightest and loosest pieces of wool ; but for 

 food it prefers the shortest and most compact ; and to procure 

 these, it eats into the body of the stuff, rejecti-ng the pile or 

 nap, which it necessarily cuts across at the origin and permits 

 to fall, leaving it threadbare, as if it had been much worn.' 



From the account which has just been given, it is evident 

 that the caterpillar must be able to turn completely round in 



