STATES OF INSECTS. 75 



the surface with a roof of hairs, which cannot be too 

 much admired; for those used for the interior of the 

 nest are placed without order, but those employed ex- 

 ternally are arranged with as much art and skill as the 

 tiles of a roof, and as effectually keep out the water, one 

 layer resting partly on the other, and all having the same 

 direction, so that the whole resembles a well-brushed 

 piece of shaggy cloth or fur. When the mother has 

 finished this labour, which often occupies her for twenty- 

 four hours, and sometimes even twice that period, her 

 body, which before was extremely hairy, is almost wholly 

 naked — she has stripped herself to supply clothing to her 

 offspring, and having performed this last duty she expires. 

 The female moths which thus protect their eggs are often 

 furnished with an extraordinary quantity of hair about the 

 anus for this express purpose ; and Reaumur conjectures, 

 that the singular anal patch of scales resembling those of 

 the wings, but considerably larger, which is found in the 

 female of Lasiocampa Pityocampa, is destined for the 

 same purpose a . 



Reaumur had once brought to him a nidus of eggs 

 clothed still more curiously : they surrounded a twig iri 

 a spiral direction, like those of Lasiocampa Neustria, but 

 were much more numerous, and were thickly covered with 

 fine down, not pressed close, but standing off horizon- 

 tally, which assumed much the same appearance as a 

 fox's tail would if twisted spirally round a branch 5 . 



A procedure nearly similar was observed by De Geer 

 in some species of Aphides (A. Alni and A. Pruni), which 

 covered their eggs with a white cottony down detached 



3 Reaum. ii. 97. 159. b Ibid. 107—. t. iii./. 15. 



