CLOTHES' MOTH. 277 



Let us look and examine how he has contrived to make it. 

 The foundation of his fabric is formed of silk of his own 

 spinning, into which he has thickly interwoven portions of 

 fur, so as to make himself a sort of muff at the expense of 

 ours, taking for his purpose the longer and stiffer hairs, leav- 

 ing for food the softest and shortest. Upon this, his furry 

 pasture, (as soon as his covering is completed, and not before,) 

 he begins to regale at leisure, an opening being left for the 

 protrusion of his head at one end of his movable encasing 

 garment. He would rather die of hunger than feed uncovered. 

 As its inmate (or wearer) fattens, the case would become, of 

 course, too small ; but to meet this growing evil, he lengthens 

 it by working in fresh hairs at each end, at the same time 

 widening it by the insertion of pieces on each side. By mov- 

 ing these little tailors, and setting them to work on various 

 stuffs, we can cause them to make up regularly striped coats 

 of many colours. 



The Moth caterpillars of this family will attack wool, 

 tapestry, and the treasures of the cabinet, go to work much in 

 the above manner with the different materials provided ready 

 to their mouths by the prospective care of their mothers. 

 Those of the cabinet scruple not to make free with the wings 

 of their defunct fellow-insects, cutting and clipping them into 

 convenient pieces for the shaping and strengthening of their 

 own body-coats.* 



* See Insect Architecture, p. 209. 



