ZO IMPERFECT SOCIETIES OF INSECTS. 
them are sometimes engaged in trundling one ball, which, 
from meeting with impediments from the unevenness of 
the ground, is sometimes deserted by them: it is how- 
ever attempted by others with success, unless it happens 
to roll into some deep hollow chink, where they are con- 
strained to leave it ; but they continue their work by roll- 
ing off the next ball that comes in their way. None of 
them seem to know their own balls, but an equal care for 
the whole appears to affect all the community *.” 
~ Many larvee also of Lepidoptera associate with this 
view, some of which are social only during part of their 
existence, and others during the whole of it. The first 
of these continue together while their united labours are 
beneficial to them; but when they reach a certain period 
of their life, they disperse and become solitary. Of this 
kind are the caterpillars of a little butterfly (Papzlio 
Cinxia) which devour the narrow-leaved plantain. ‘The 
families of these, usually amounting to about a hundred, 
unite to form a pyramidal silken tent, containing several 
apartments, which is pitched over some of the plants that 
constitute their food, and shelters them both from the sun 
and the rain. When they have consumed the provision 
which it covers, they construct a new one over other roots 
of this plant; and sometimes four or five of these encamp- 
ments may be seen within a foot or two of each other. 
Against winter they weave and erect a stronger habitation 
of a rounder form, not divided by any partitions, in which 
they lie heaped one upon another, each being rolled up. 
About April they separate, and continue solitary till they 
assume the pupa. 
* Catesby’s Carolina, ii. 111, See above, Vou. I. 4th Ed. 349, 
