TENT-MAKING CATERPILLARS. 223 



found it would not touch. This may probably be the 

 origin of the practice of putting a bit of candle with 

 furs, &c, to preserve them from the moth. For 

 building, it always selects the straightest and loosest 

 pieces of wool, but for food it prefers the shortest and 

 most compact ; and to procure these it eats into the 

 body of the stuff, rejecting the pile or nap, which it 

 necessarily cuts across at the origin, and permits to 

 fall, leaving it threadbare, as if it had been much 

 worn. It must have been this circumstance which 

 induced Bonnet to fancy (as we have already men- 

 tioned) that it cut the hairs to make itself a smooth 

 comfortable path to walk upon. It would be equally 

 correct to say that an ox or a sheep dislikes walking 

 amongst long grass, and therefore eats it down in 

 order to clear the way. 



Tent-making Caterpillars. 



The caterpillars of a family of small moths (Tinei- 

 dm), which feed on the leaves of various trees, such as 

 the hawthorn, the elm, the oak, and most fruit-trees, 

 particularly the pear, form habitations which are 

 exceedingly ingenious and elegant. They are so 

 very minute that they require close inspection to 

 discover them ; and to the cursory observer, unac- 

 quainted with their habits, they will appear more like 

 the withered leaf-scales of the tree, thrown off when 

 the buds expand, than artificial structures made by 

 insects. It is only indeed, by seeing them move 

 about upon the leaves, that we discover they are in- 

 habited by a living tenant, who carries them as the 

 snail does its shell. 



These tents are from a quarter of an inch to an 

 inch in length, and usually about the breadth of an 

 oat-straw. That they are of the colour of a withered 

 leaf is not surprising ; for they are actually composed 

 of apiece of leaf; not, however, cut out from the 



