280 STATES OF INSECTS. 



admittance through this vaunted door ? Our caterpillar 

 would seem to have foreseen your dilemma ; at least, un- 

 der heavenly guidance, she has guarded against the dan- 

 ger as effectually as if she had. If you cut open the co- 

 coon longitudinally, you will see that within the exterior 

 funnel-shaped end, at some distance she has framed a 

 second funnel, composed of a similar circular series of 

 stiff threads, which, proceeding from the sides of the co- 

 coon, converge also to a point, and form a sort of cone 

 exactly like the closed peristome of a moss ; or, to use a 

 more humble though not less apt illustration, like the 

 wires of certain mousetraps a . In this dome not the 

 slightest opening is left, and from its arched structure it 

 is impenetrable to the most violent efforts of any ma- 

 rauders from without; whilst it yields to the slightest 

 pressure from within, and allows the egress of the moth 

 with the utmost facility. When she has passed through 

 it, the elastic threads resume their former position, and 

 the empty cocoon presents just the same appearance as 

 one still inhabited. Rosel relates with amusing naivete 

 how this circumstance puzzled him the first time he wit- 

 nessed it : he could scarcely help thinking that there was 

 something supernatural in the appearance of one of these 

 fine moths in a box in which he had put a cocoon of 

 this kind, but in which he could not discover the slight- 

 est appearance of any insect having escaped from it, until 

 he slit it longitudinally b . But from an observation of 

 Meinecken, it appears that these converging threads serve 



a Plate XVII. Fig. 5. N. B. Sepp's figure represents the exterior 

 funnel ; and this, which exhibits the cocoon divided longitudinally, 

 the interior one, or dome, 



b Itds. I. iv. 31. 



