INSTINCT OF INSECTS. 477 
stuffed the interstices between its bottom and the irregu- 
lar surface on which it rested, with a linen cloth. This 
cloth, the bees, finding themselves in a situation where 
ho moss was to be had, tore thread from thread, carded 
it with their feet into a felted mass, and applied it to the 
same purpose as moss, for which it was nearly as well 
adapted.—Some other humble-bees tore the cover of a 
book with which he had closed the top of the box that 
contained them, and made use of the detached morsels 
in covering their nest?. 
The larva of Bombyx Cossus, L., which feeds in the 
interior of trees, previously to fabricating a cocoon and 
assuming the pupa state, forms for the egress of the future 
moth a cylindrical orifice, except when it finds a suitable 
hole ready made. When the moth is about to appear, 
the chrysalis with its anterior end forces an opening in 
the cocoon. If the orifice in the tree has been formed by 
itself, in which case it exactly fits its body, it entirely quits 
the cocoon, and pushes itself half way out of the hole, 
where it remains secure from falling until the moth is dis- 
closed. But if the orifice, having been adopted, be larger 
than it ought to have been, and thus not capable of 
supporting the pupa in this position, the provident insect 
pushes itself only half way out of the cocoon, which thus 
serves for the support which in the former case the wood 
itself afforded”. 
The variations in the procedures of the larva of a lit- 
tle moth (Tinea, F.) described by Reaumur, whose ha- 
bitation has been before noticed°—one of those which 
constantly reside in a subcylindrical case—are still more 
@ Linn. Trans. vi. 254—. » Lyonet, Traité anatomique &e. 16—. 
© Vou. I. 4th Ed. 458—. 
