234 TENT-MAKERS. 



his coming forth, the winged Emperor has only to push 

 against the elastic points above him, which, thus opened, 

 reclose after his egress, and leave the flask-shaped tenement 

 entire and unimpaired. 



The " Emperor,''* as its name imports, is one of the largest 

 and handsomest of our English moths ; its prevailing hue 

 (grayish tinged with purple) being banded and waved with 

 white, purplish, and dark brown. At the point of each ante- 

 rior wing is a patch of purple, and in the centre of all a large 

 black and white ocellus, or eye-like spot. It is said by Curtis 

 to be found frequently in most parts of England. The cater- 

 pillar is green, with black bands, and pink or yellow tuber- 

 cles, hairy and star-like. 



From this imperial, flask-making weaver, we descend (an 

 abrupt transition) to the tiny tent-maker, which, though taber- 

 nacled in the frail tissue of a piece of leaf, belongs to the 

 same Tinea family as the sturdy little mason whom we have 

 seen to build himself a tower of brick or stone. Those who 

 in a green leaf, or a leaf turned yellow, are accustomed to see 

 a leaf and nothing more, will acquire large conceptions 

 even of a single leaf, when led to consider, that while to some 

 among the insect million it furnishes an extensive plain, to 

 others, it is absolutely a tented field. When the summer 

 breeze sings cheerily through a hawthorn hedge, or dances 

 merrily with the boughs of oak or elm, it is r Tiot with leaves 



* Saturnia pwvowia. 



