VUSS-MOTH. 195 



thoroughly dry, it was so hard that it could with 

 difficulty be penetrated with the point of a penknife* 



Cell built hy the Larva of the Pust-Moth 



A question will here suggest itself to the curious 

 inquirer, how the moth, which is not, like the cater- 

 pillar, furnished with mandibles for gnawing, can find 

 its way through so hard a wall. To resolve this 

 question, it is asserted by recent naturalists (see Kirby 

 and Spence, vol. iii. p. 15), that the moth is furnished 

 with a peculiar acid for dissolving itself a passage. We 

 have a specimen of the case of a puss-moth, in which, 

 notwithstanding its strength, one of the ichneumons 

 had contrived to deposit its eggs. In the beginning 

 of summer, when we expected the moth to appear, and 

 felt anxious to observe the recorded effects of the 

 acid, we were astonished to find a large orange 

 cuckoo-fly make its escape; while another, which at- 

 tempted to follow, stuck by the way and died. On 

 detaching the cell from the box, we found several 

 Others, which had not been able to get out, and had 

 died in their cocoons f- 



Ichneumon (Ophion luteum) Jigurcd from the one mentioned. 



* J.R. t J. K. 



