HABITATIONS OF INSECTS. 



387 



vished on them the most splendid tints tastefully combined 

 with gold, silver and pearl ; so that, were they but formed 

 upon a larger scale, they would far eclipse all other animals 

 in richness of decoration. 



Another tribe of larvae, not very numerous, content them- 

 selves for their habitations with simple holes, into which they 

 retire occasionally. Many of these are merely cylindrical 

 burrows in the ground, as those formed by the larvae of field- 

 crickets, Cicindelse, and Ephemerae. But the larvse of the 

 very remarkable lepidopterous genus {Nycterohius of Mr. 

 MacLeay) before alluded to, excavate for themselves 

 dwellings of a more artificial construction; forming cy- 

 lindrical holes in the trees of New Holland, particularly the 

 difierent species of Banksia, to which they are very de- 

 structive, and defending the entrance against the attacks of 

 the Mantes and other carnivorous insects by a sort of trap- 

 door composed of silk interwoven with leaves and pieces of 

 excrement, securely fastened at the upper end, but left loose 

 at the lower for the free passage of the occupant. This abode 

 they regularly quit at sunset, for the purpose of laying in a 

 store of the leaves on which they feed. These they drag by 

 one at a time into their cell until the approach of light, when 

 they retreat precipitately into it, and there remain closely 

 secluded the whole day, enjoying the booty which their 

 nocturnal range has provided. One species lifts up the loose 

 end of its door by its tail, and enters backward, dragging 

 after it a leaf of Banksia serrata, which it holds by the 

 foot-stalk.^ 



A third description of larvae, chiefly of the two lepidopterous 

 tribes of Tortricidce and Tineidce, form into convenient habit- 

 ations the leaves of the plants on which they feed. Some of 

 these merely connect together with a few silken threads 

 several leaves so as to form an irregular packet, in the centre 

 of which the little hermit lives. Others confine themselves 

 to a single leaf, of which they simply fold one part over 

 the other. A third description form and inhabit a sort of 

 roll, by some species made cylindrical, by others conical, 



1 Lewin's Prodromus Entom. p. 8, 



c c 2 



