334 DIVISION III. ARTICULATED ANIMALS.—CLASS IV. INSECTA 
that, from the time of Tiberius, the senate felt itself called upon to forbid 
the use of silk garments to men. Examples of simplicity are sometimes 
set in high places; thus the Emperor Aurelian refused to the Empress Sey- 
erina a dress so costly. 
As one of the most useful animals to man is found in the preceding group, 
so one of the most mischievous constitutes the following genus : — 
Tinra.— These insects are small, but have a remarkable power of de- 
struction. ‘They have a short proboscis, formed of two membranous fila- 
ments, and a very hairy head. There are several species, all having the 
same destructive habits — feeding on furs, clothes, woollen stuffs, and grains 
of wheat in granaries. These moths are a constant nuisance and pest. 
T. Tapezella. —The Woollen Moth is one of the most destructive. Its 
caterpillar has the form of a worm, and is of a glossy whiteness, with a few 
hairs thinly sprinkled over it, and a gray line on its back. It is enclosed in 
a tube, or sheath, open at both ends, in the interior of which is a sort of 
tissue of wool, sometimes blue, sometimes green, sometimes red, according 
to the color of the stuff to which the insect attaches itself, and which it 
despoils. The exterior of this sheath is, on the contrary, formed of silk, 
made by the insect itself, of a whitish color. 
The caterpillars are hardly hatched before they begin to clothe themselves. 
| Réaumur observed one of these worms during the operation of enlarging its 
| case. To do this it put its head out of one of the extremities of its sheath, 
| and looked about eagerly, to the right and to the left, for those bits of wool 
| which suited best for weaving in. 
“The larva changes its place continually and very quickly. If the threads 
| of wool which are near it are not such as it desires, it draws sometimes 
| more than half its body out of its case to go and look for better ones farther 
off. If it finds a bit that pleases, the head remnins fixed for an instant; it 
| then seizes the thread with the two mandibles which are below its head, 
tears the bit out after redoubled efforts, and immediately carries it to the 
end of the tube, against which it attaches it. It repeats many times in suc- 
cession a similar manceuvre, sometimes coming partly out of its tube, and 
then again reéntering it to fix against one of its sides a new piece of wool.” 
After having worked for about a minute at one end of its tube, it thinks 
of lengthening the other. It turns itself round in its tube with such quick- 
ness, that you would imagine that it could not have had time to do so, and 
would think that its tail was formed in the same way as its head, and pos- 
sessed the same address in choosing and tearing out the bits of wool. 
“Furthermore, when the moth, which is working at elongating its case, 
does not find the threads or hairs of wool to its taste within reach of its 
head, it changes its place. Réaumur saw this insect walking, at some speed 
