THE PS Y CHID AC. 
1 19 
tube which is still open. It then becomes transformed into the 
chrysalis. In a few weeks’ time the moth escapes from its prison 
if it is a male, but if it is a female she still stops at home, being 
none the less attractive, however, to her admirers. She lays 
her eggs inside the old house and dies. No young caterpillars 
should have a greater respect for their mother than those which 
are born after a time in the old house where she died, for she 
built the house, carried it about with her exposed to number- 
less dangers, repaired it, and was married in it. But these little 
thoughtless things not only are ungrateful, but unfeeling, for the 
first thing they do is to set to work to eat up their mother’s 
body, which they perform very completely, for they only leave 
the hard parts behind. After having done this they quit the old 
home and wander about the world. This cannibalism is almost 
THE CHRYSALIS AND THE FEMALE PERFECT INSECT OF Psyche graminellll 
but not quite an exceptional proceeding in the Lepidoptera. In 
the spring-time and in early summer the caterpillar of Psyche 
graminella may be seen wandering about over the grasses, brooms, 
heaths, and sometimes upon walls, and it is very visible, for its 
tube is often nearly an inch long. It is made up of little pieces 
of leaves all cut to about the same size and placed one within 
the other like flounces, and its front part has one or two rows of 
pieces of wood or of sprigs of plants placed longways upon it. 
These pieces come from the caterpillar’s favourite plants. The 
caterpillar never has but one tube, which it enlarges from time 
to time by making a slit in it with its jaws. The margins of the 
slit open, and a piece made up of silk and vegetable matter is 
stuffed into it. Every time that the larva enlarges its house 
it repeats this manoeuvre. The caterpillar is of a pale grey 
colour, and its head and its three thoracic segments are of a 
reddish-brown and are marked with black lines and dots. It 
is no beauty; but what is the use of being dressed up when 
one lives in the dark ? 
