BURDOCK MOTHS. 239 



corn, from the chaff and numerous minute hairs by which the 

 grains are surrounded, we are accustomed to rub it through a 

 piece of coarse open muslin ; but in breaking up the burrs for 

 this purpose we have often found an assemblage of the seeds 

 (sometimes as many as ten or a dozen) so firmly joined together 

 that to separate them has been no easy matter. When, however, 

 forcibly torn or cut asunder, there comes to light, embedded 

 in the centre of the united seeds, a little white, brown-headed 

 caterpillar, the agent of their firm conjunction and the devourer 

 of their bitter substance. This is the descendant of a small 

 gold-brown moth, which, scattering her eggs upon the heads of 

 burdock, thus secures to each of her progeny a provision 

 through the autumn, and a safe asylum for the winter. Having 

 conjoined, apparently with gluten, a group of adjacent seeds, 

 each caterpillar burrows into and feeds in solitude upon them. 

 In so doing, it forms a capacious cavity, which, after lining 

 with a silken web, it appropriates as its dormitory through the 

 bitter season. And a secure asylum does the little slumberer 

 possess ! The burr of his occupation may be shaken on its 

 stalk, borne to the earth, and despoiled of its grains by the 

 blasts of November ; but, protected by the hard tough covering 

 of the cemented seeds which wall him round, his central cham- 

 ber remains impervious to wet and cold. Under its cover he 

 becomes, in May, a little brown chrysalis, to emerge, in June, 



bitter seeds of com/pound flowers those of dandelion, fcnap-weed, thistle, teazle, and 

 burdock seeming all in turn equally acceptable to our favourites. 



VOL. II. 15. 



