CARPENTERS. 231 



for him, it is bespread. Well might it be observed, that 

 " never was Roman soldier so laden with the weight of arms 

 and armour as is the little tenant of this stone-built tower ; 

 but he both bears it and moves under it with an apparent 

 facility which proves his proportionate amount of muscle to 

 be infinitely greater than that allotted to the mightiest of hu- 

 man frames. 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 chrysalis, 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* 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 



* Vignette. 



