54 



SHEATH-BEARING INSECTS. 



BY REV. THOMAS W. FYLES, SOUTH QUEBEC. 



It has been said that man is the only animal who is born naked, and the only one 

 who can clotbe himself. This is not strictly true. At any rate quite a number of cater- 

 pillars are expert tailors. 



The smallest of the English thick-bodied moths is Fumea nitidella. As soon as the 

 tiny caterpillar of this insect bursts from the shell, it commences to make itself a coat. 

 The workman in his finished work, seen by the naked eye, resembles a minute pillar of 

 pith set on end. Seen through a microscope the covering is thimble-shaped, and appears 

 as if made of tissue-paper of variegated colours (Rev. E. Tearle in Ent. Int. No. 147) ; 

 and the caterpillar, seen through the same medium, resembles that of Cossus ligniperda. 

 The young exquisite, when sporting its elegant attire, walks with its fore legs, and holds 

 its coat on with its hind ones, toppling about unsteadily. Sometimes it is quite extinguished 

 by its apparel. It reminds one of a little child wearing its father's hat — you see the 

 laughing face for a moment, and then the big chapeau slips over it, and it is gone. 



As the Nitidella grows, it finds it necessary not only to enlarge, but to strengthen its 

 -coat; so it attaches to it ribs made of small pieces of pine-needles, or of stems of grass, 

 which seem to answer the purpose admirably. 



The coat of the Nitidella is an important article. It is not only the winter clothing 

 • of the caterpillar, it is also the case which protects the chrysalis. The female, indeed, 

 never leaves her coat ; she creeps as a perfect insect. (In one sense, perhaps, she ought 

 not to be called a perfect insect, for she has only rudimentary wings.) She creeps from 

 under her coat and then takes her seat upon it. She sits upon it with as much determination 

 as an old lady in a railway station sits upon her trunk to keep it safe. She holds her court 

 upon it. She lays her eggs around it, and at its foot she dies. The coat is her home in 

 life, and her monument in death. Her infant progeny, opening their eyes to the light, see 

 her good work, and go and do likewise — they take, severally, in paper of their own 

 manufacture, a pattern of the coat. 



The Coleophora?, of which forty-one are described by Stainton in his Natural History 

 of the Tineina, afford remarkable instances of caterpillars having the power to clothe 

 themselves. Mr. Lane Clarke, who turned one of these insects out of its case, thus describes 

 its proceedings for the formation of a new one: — 



"It had fixed near the edge of the leaf, and was carefully eating out the parenchyma 

 of each serrature, leaving the edges untouched, as it thereby saved a seam in the tent, yet 

 emptying each tooth to make it light and less brittle. When all was clear, the larva 

 measured a gentle curve a little larger than its body, and began to draw the cuticle to- 

 gether on the opposite side to the serratures — tacking it loosely at first, and biting the 

 membrane between the fibres, sewing it more neatly then, and careful not to cut the 

 supporting braces formed by the nerves of the leaf. Then it rubbed the interior of the 

 case with its head, as if to smooth it, and presently began to darken it with a web of fine 

 silk, rendering further operations invisible, only I preceived that one end was left open," 

 * * * " and that the fibres were cut mysteriously away, when the 



tent, by powerful muscular action, was raised from the leaf, and the Coleophora marched 

 off to refresh himself in a new excavation." (Int. Obs., vol. IV, p. 4.) 



In Europe the Coleophorse are met with at every turn, on the heath of the commons, 

 on the elms in the green lanes, on the plants by the way-side. They look like moving 

 atoms of the plants they feed on ; and they have the power of throwing themselves strangely 

 into position to deceive the over curious eye. 



Of the case-bearers of this continent, the apple-tree case-bearer (Coleophora malivorella, 

 Riley) is an interesting example. The larva of this insect feeds upon the buds and leaves 

 of the apple tree. The case it constructs for itself is curved like the handle of a pistol. 

 The moth appeai-s in July. It is mottled, brown and white, and is about halfan-inch in 

 expanse of wings. The young larva feeds on the under side of the leaves, until the frost 

 comes ; then it fastens its case to a twig, making itself comfortable for the winter ; in spring 

 it feeds up upon the buds of the tree, and in June it goes into chrysalis. 



