of the successive stages of transformation in lepidopterous 
insects, they always fall short of the complete communistic 
life as seen in the bees, ants, wasps, termites, locusts, and 
even gnats and mosquitoes. But for the history and details 
of these marvellous creatures I would refer the student to 
Kirby and Spence, Introduction to Entomology; Dr. P. 
Martin Duncan, The Transformation of Insects; Sir John 
Lubbock’s works on The Ants ; and the Rev. J. G. Wood, 
Homes without Hands, and Insects at Home. 
There are several small lepidoptera in our own country 
which build nests in common, or weave some kind of case 
of silk, leaves, or twigs, in which the cocoon will find shel- 
ter and warmth during the season of rest. These tents and 
pendulous nests are comparatively small and inconspicuous, 
but they are not the less curiously made and well adapted 
for the purposes they have to fulfil. 
It is from the tropical forests of South America, Africa, 
India, &c., that the greatest samples of gregarious nests 
have been obtained, and of which I have four good exam- 
ples to lay before the Section. 
I have exhausted the sources of reference which are at 
my command for some information about these specimens, 
without having met with any description that will apply to 
them. There are descriptions of various forms of pen- 
dant gregarious nests of insects in the authors’ works I 
have mentioned, and in other vrorks on Entomology the 
general habits of moths and butterflies to gregarious habits 
are amply dwelt upon — but nothing I have seen as yet 
describes these curious nests. 
Mr. Wood, in his Homes without Hands, page 441, figures 
and describes the social nests of two species of lepidoptera, 
one of which bears a fair resemblance to the specimens I 
exhibit. His sample came from Mexico; it is a pendulous 
nest about eight inches long, having a flask-like shape ; the 
