WALL-BUILDING. 317 



vation during their own trying time of change and state of 

 torpor, instead of, as with the mother bee and maternal-feeling 

 ant, having for their end the protection of their helpless young. 

 Here, then, is a mason caterpillar* no " lean," but truly a 

 very fat, fell-grown artificer, recently dislodged from under- 

 ground, together with his newly -made and hardly finished 

 habitation. The latter is of oval shape, very rough without, 

 very smooth within, and tapestried with silk. This we can 

 discern through a broken aperture at one end of the cocoon, 

 and through the same opening we can also see its occupant 

 employed even now in reparation of his damaged wall a wall 

 it may properly be called a wall of earthy particles, held to- 

 gether, not by cement, but by silken threads; for the builder 

 before us unites the art of weaving to that of masonry. A 

 supply of earth has been placed within his reach, and, taking 

 grain after grain in his forceps jaws, he fits them into the 

 breach of his cell, securing each with silk spun as required, 

 the coarser particles being selected for the outer, the finer for 

 the inner side of his wall. He has nearly closed the aperture; 

 but what means he now by cessation of his grain-laying to 

 collect and carry in a portion of his provided material ? This 

 he has accomplished ; and now he proceeds to weave over 

 the small opening yet to close a thick silken net-work, into 

 the meshes of which. he keeps thrusting from within grains 

 of the earth, which he had, evidently for this purpose, taken 



* Of the Water-Betony Moth : Cucullia Scrophularia. 



