386 



HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



namely, those which are formed by the insect itself for its 

 own use. These may be again subdivided into such as are 

 the work of the insects in their larva state ; and such as are 

 formed by perfect insects. 



Many larvje of all orders need no other habitations than 

 the holes which they form in seeking for, or eating, the sub- 

 stances upon which they feed. Of this description are the 

 majority of subterranean larvae, and those which feed on 

 wood ; as the Bostrichi or labyrinth beetles ; the Anohia, which 

 excavate the little circular holes frequently met with in an- 

 cient furniture and the wood-work of old houses ; and many 

 larvas of other orders, particularly Lepidoptera. One of these 

 last, the larva of Cossus ligniperda, differs from its congeners 

 in fabricating for its residence during winter a habitation of 

 pieces of wood lined with fine silk.^ Under this division, too, 

 come the singular habitations of the subcutaneous larvse, so 

 called from the circumstance of their feeding upon the paren- 

 chyma included between the upper and under cuticles of the 

 leaves of plants, between which, though the whole leaf is 

 often not thicker than a sheet of writing-paper, they find at 

 once food and lodging. You must have been at some time 

 struck by certain white zigzag or labyrinth-like lines on the 

 leaves of the dandelion, bramble, and numerous other plants : 

 the next time you meet with one of them, if you hold it up 

 to the light you will perceive that the colour of these lines is 

 owing to the pulpy substance of the leaf having there been 

 removed ; and at the further end you will probably remark 

 a dark-coloured speck, which, when carefully extricated from 

 its covering, you will find to be the little miner of the tor- 

 tuous galleries which you are admiring. Some of these 

 minute larve, to which the parenchyma of a leaf is a vast 

 country, requiring several weeks to be traversed by the slow 

 process of mining which they adopt — that of eating the exca- 

 vated materials as they proceed — are transformed into beetles 

 (^Clonus thapsi, &c.); others into flies; and a still greater 

 number into very minute moths, as Heribeia Clerkella, &c. 

 Many of these last are little miracles of nature, which has la- 



Lyonet, Anat. of Coss. 9 



