230 



INSECT ARCHITECTURE. 



but it seems to be done with more hurry and less care. 

 It may be, indeed, in some cases, that the supply of 

 silk necessary to unite the bits of stone, earth, or 

 lichen employed, is too scanty for perfecting a second 

 structure. 



We remarked a very singular circumstance in 

 the operations of our little architect, which seems 

 to have escaped the minute and accurate attention 

 of Reaumur. When it commenced its structure, it 

 was indispensable to lay a foundation for the walls 

 about to be reared ; but as the tent was to be moveable 

 like the shell of a snail, and not stationary, it would 

 not have answered its end to cement the foundation 

 to the wall. We had foreseen this difliculty, and felt 

 not a little interested in discovering how it would be 

 got over. Accordingly, upon watching its move- 

 ments with some attention, we were soon gratified 

 to perceive that it used its own body as the pri- 

 mary support of the building. It fixed a thread 

 of silk upon one of its right feet, warped it over to the 

 corresponding left foot, and upon the thread thus 

 stretched between the two feet, it glued grains of 

 stone and chips of hchen, till the wall was of the re- 

 quired thickness. Upon this, as a foundation, it 

 continued to work till it had formed a small portion 

 in form of a parallelogram; and, proceeding in a 

 similar way, it was not long in making a ring a very 

 little wider than sutEcient to admit its body. It ex- 

 tended this ring in breadth, by working on the inside 

 only, narrowing the diameter by degrees, till it began 

 to take the form of a cone. The apex of this cone 

 was not closed up, but left as an aperture through 

 which to eject its excrements. 



It is worthy of remark, that one of the caterpillars 

 which we deprived of its tent, attempted to save itself 

 the trouble of building a new one, by endeavouring 

 to unhouse one of its neighbours. For this purpose, 



