ARCHITECTURE OF MOTHS. 89 



of the leaves of grasses, united at one end only, and 

 overlapping each other like the imbricated tiles of a 

 roof; and he notices another, similarly constructed, 

 of minute portions of the twigs of broom.* 



The Tinea Ikhenum forms pieces of lichen into a 

 liouso, resembling in shape some of the turreted snail 

 shells. Mr Kirby noticed many of them on an oak 

 at Barham, in June 1812. Another caterpillar of 

 the Tinea, which likewise feeds on lichens, does not 

 frame its habitation of them, like the last-mentioned 

 species, but connects together, with silken cement, 

 grains of stone, from walls where the lichens grow. 

 There is a curious memoir on the subject of these 

 insects in the Transactions of the French Academi/,\ 

 by M. de la Voge. That gentleman supposed that, 

 because these larvae were found in such abundance 

 on mouldering walls, that they possessed the pro- 

 perty of eating stone, and considered them as the 

 means which Time employed to carry into effect 

 his slow but certain destruction of all things ; but 

 which ought rather to be attributed to atmospheric 

 erosion. Reaumur justly remarks, that these larvse 

 are so small, and the particles of which their cover- 

 ing is composed so minute, that ages were not suffi- 

 cient for them to produce any perceptible impression. 



They have been termed Stone-mason Caterpillars; 



• RrAUMUR, iii. 148-9. 

 ■f- Trans. French Acad. x. 458. 

 VOL. II. G 



