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CHAPTER IV. 



ON THE HABITATIONS AND ARCHITECTURE OF MOTHS. 



There is not a more interesting or remarkable 

 department of our inquiry than the habitations and 

 architecture of the tribe of moths. They are endowed 

 with an unerring foresight or instinct, by which each 

 species fonns for itself a nest or habitation, construct- 

 ed, in many instances, upon the most pliilosophical 

 principles. The Linncean genus Phalama, or Moth, 

 contains a vast number of species, scarcely two of 

 which build nests alike. 



The caterpillars of the Ni/cterobius, before alluded 

 to as an inhabitant of New Holland, excavate for 

 themselves holes in trees, especially in that splendid 

 tribe, the Banksia ; and to which they frequently 

 prove very destructive, owing tothenumerouscavities 

 they make. They have a most ingenious method of 

 defending theentranceof their abode from the attacks 

 of the Mantes, by a kind of trapdoor of leaves and 

 excrement, interwoven with silky filaments, which 

 they fasten fimily at top, but leave unattached at the 



