218 STATES OF INSECTS. 



tions of one of the ends of her cocoon, she adds new- 

 threads to this small beginning, and so proceeds. As 

 the work advances she retreats backwards, and her body 

 is situated nearly in the same line with the cocoon she 

 has begun, and quite out of it ; she only touches with her 

 head and legs its anterior margin. When half the co- 

 coon, or rather of its exterior layer, is finished, she sus- 

 pends her operations for some moments. She then for 

 the first time introduces her head into this demi-cocoon, 

 and turns herself in it by doubling her supple body, and 

 passing one part over the other, so that at last she ma- 

 nages to bring her tail into the pointed end of the cocoon, 

 the head and the anterior half of her body remaining 

 without. Thus situated, she commences her operations 

 afresh. At a distance from the margin of the demi-co- 

 coon, equal to its length, she begins to spin the pointed 

 end of the other moiety, the length of her body serving 

 her as a measure that enables her to begin at the proper 

 distance from it. This new portion she spins in the same 

 manner as the other ; but as she is prevented by the demi- 

 cocoon in which the posterior part of her body is lodged 

 from retreating backwards, she contracts her body more, 

 which answers the same purpose. When the new work 

 is so advanced that she can no longer contract her body, 

 she bends the anterior part of it considerably, and re- 

 verses her head. When the distance between the mar- 

 gin of the two halves of the cocoon is very small, so as no 

 longer to admit the head between them, in order to unite 

 them she is obliged to have recourse to another manoeu- 

 vre. Withdrawing her head, she extends silken longitu- 

 dinal threads between the two margins, and thus unites 

 them. This part is more clumsy, and not so regular as 



