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Chapter VIII. 



i 



LRAF-ROLLINQ CATERPILLARS. 



The labours of those insect-architects, which we have 

 endeavoured to describe in the preceding pages, have 

 been chiefly those of mothers to form a secure nest 

 for their eggs, and the young hatched from them, 

 during the first stage of their existence. But a much 

 more numerous, and not less ingenious class of 

 architects, may be found among the newly-hatched 

 insects themselves, who, untaught by experience, and 

 altogether unassisted by previous example, manifest 

 the most marvellous skill in the construction of 

 tents, houses, galleries, covert-ways, fortifications, 

 and even cities, not to speak of subterranean caverns 

 and subaqueous apartments, which no human art 

 could rival. 



The caterpillars, which are familiarly termed leaf- 

 rollers, are perfect hermits. Each lives in a cell, 

 which it begins to construct almost immediately after 

 it is hatched ; and the little structure is at once a 

 house which protects the caterpillar from its enemies, 

 and a store of food for its subsistence while it remains 

 shut up in its prison. But the insect only devours 

 the inner folds. The art which these caterpillars 

 exercise, although called into action but once, 

 perhaps, in their lives, is perfect. They accomplish 

 their purpose with a mechanical skill, which is re- 

 markable for its simplicity and unerring success. 

 The art of rolling leaves into a secure and immoveable 



