LEPIDOPTERA. 207 
in the dry and interlaced leaves which have already served them 
for places of refuge and partly also for food, or else they make 
themselves a fresh nest. 
At the end of two or three days, the caterpillar has become a 
chrysalis (Fig. 289), which in a short time assumes a brown 
colour. Shut up in the interior of the cocoon which the cater- 
pillar had spun before undergoing its metamorphosis, it changes 
into a moth at the end of from fourteen to sixteen days. 
The best way to diminish the ravages of the pyralis is to pluck 
off the leaves which are laden with eggs and burn them, or bury 
them in deep holes. : 
Fig. 290, which we devote to the conspicuous insect whose 
destructive history we have been here able to sketch only slightly, 
gives all the particulars relating to this dangerous guest of the 
vineyards. On a branch of the vine, may be perceived the pyralis 
in the caterpillar state, the eggs which have been laid by the 
moths, the chrysalides, and perfect insects. The eggs are shown 
at two periods of their development. 
The Bee-hive or Wax Galleria is to be met with in all countries 
where bees are reared. 
The moth (Fig. 291) hides itself 
during the day round about the bee- 
hives, and endeavours to make its way 
into them after sunset. The caterpillar 
is of a dirty white, with brown warty 
spots, each surmounted by a fine hair. 
It lives on wax, twines its threads 
round the honeycomb and very soon causes the larvae contained 
in it to perish. 
When it emerges from the egg, which the female has laid in 
the honey comb, the caterpillar makes for itself with the wax a 
rounded tube, in which it is safe against the stings of the bees. 
This tube, at first very small, is lengthened and enlarged as the 
caterpillar increases in size. It is generally from three to five 
inches in length. It is in the interior of this that the caterpillar 
constructs itself a hard cocoon, resembling leather, and it changes 
into a brownish chrysalis. 
A species of the genus Butalis, the Butalis or Alucita granella, 

Fig. 291.—Galleria cerella. 
