298 HOMES WITHOUT HANDS. 



The "Charan^on de la Patience" of De Geer is a beetle of this 

 genus. In both cases the cocoons are affixed to the under side 

 of the leaves, whether they are attached to the mullein or the 

 heath, so that they are not readily seen except by careful ob- 

 servers, who know where to look for them. In the insect room 

 at the British Museum there is a beautiful series of these delicate- 

 ly formed cocoons still adhering to the dry and shriveled leaves 

 of the plant on which the beetle had fed. 



We now come to the pensile lepidoptera, of which a number 

 of specimens will be mentioned. They all belong to the moths, 

 the pensile butterflies being content with suspending themselves 

 by a couple of threads, without taking the trouble to build or spin 

 a nest. 



One of the most beautiful of these nests is the cocoon of the 

 common Bmpeeor Moth {Satumia pavonia-minor). The moth 

 itself is very beautiful, with its broad, soft-plumaged, pink-e^ed 

 wings ; but it is even equaled by the larva in beauty of color, a 

 phenomena not very usual among the lepidoptera. The rings or 

 segments of the caterpillar are rounded and deeply cut, and are 

 remarkable for the tufts of golden -colored bristles with which 

 thejr are covered, each tuft springing from a raised and rounded 

 tubercle. The body itself is of a beautiful leaf-green. 



The cocoon which is made by this remarkable insect is ex- 

 tremely beautiful, though its beauty does not appear to a careless 

 observer. Some twenty years ago, when I first began to study 

 practical entomology, and had no access to the books that were 

 then published on the subject, I took to breeding every caterpil- 

 lar that could be found, not having the least idea what kind of 

 being would issue from it. Among them was a caterpillar which 

 struck my fancy so much, by its green body and golden tufts, that 

 I made a colored drawing of it, and constructed for its benefit a 

 separate cage, wherein it lived for some little time, and then spun 

 a silken cocoon of a flask-like shape, very rough and loose on the 

 exterior. 



Some time afterward, upon looking into the box, I saw a beau- 

 tiful moth clinging to the side. How the creature had gained 

 admission I could not conceive, for the cocoon seemed to be per- 

 fectly intact, and to exhibit no signs that an insect had broken 

 through the walls. Concluding, however, that the moth might 

 have crept into the box without my knowledge, or might have 



