288 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



Sometimes in a field, or even in a limited portion of a field, 

 these cocoons are so nitmerous that at a little distance they look 

 almost as if they were the seeds of the plant rather than the 

 cocoons of an insect. In such cases the moths themselves may 

 generally be found near the cocoons, sometimes being on the 

 ground and sometimes on the wing. These moths are peculiarly 

 liable to the attacks of the ichneumon flies, for not only does the 

 Burnet ichneumon make them its special prey, but I have seen 

 a large percentage of the cocoons bored full of holes, which show 

 that one of the parasitic hymenopteras has laid its eggs in the 

 caterpillar, that the young have been developed, and made their 

 escape to continue the work of destmction, and that the caterpillar 

 which nurtured them is lying dead within its useless cocoon. 



There are others of our finest and yet commonest moths 

 which make to themselves pensile habitations in which they 

 pass the long time of helplessness when they are in the pupal 

 state. Anything more utterly helpless than the pupa of certain 

 moths caimot well be imagined, their only protection consisting 

 either in their hiding-place or the sheltering armour in which 

 the creature is enveloped. 



The fur-clad Drinker Moth, for example (Odonestis potatoria), 

 spins a cocoon which bears some resemblance in its texture to 

 that of the Burnet moth, though it is rather looser in structure 

 and is of much larger dimensions. The general colour of the 

 cocoon is grey, with a few brownish mottlings here and there, 

 and in form it is spindle-shaped, being widest in the centre, and 

 diminishing to a point at either extremity. Conspicuous as this 

 cocoon appears to be when exhibited in a glass case, it is any- 

 thing but conspicuous in the position wherein it is placed by 

 the insect. I have bred at least two hundred moths from the 

 caterpillar, and though the space was necessarily limited, many 

 of the cocoons escaped observation until after the moth had been 

 developed and made its escapa 



Like the Burnet moth, the Drinker is very liable to the attacks 

 of ichneumons. There is now before me a cocoon which was 

 made in 1846, and is preserved as one of the first instances of 

 an entomologist's disappointment. As it now lies on its slab of 

 white cardboard, it looks as if a charge of dust-shot had been 

 fired through it, no less than seventeen minute holes being 



