INTRODUCTION. 
77 
uith the rest of their kind ; many live in societies for 
some time after they are hatched, hut separate as 
they grow up ; wliile others continue together all 
the time they are caterpiUms, even undergoing their 
metamorphoses in company, and not scattering till 
they acquire wings. The habitations which they 
construct, and many particulars in their economy, 
depend to a certain extent on their habits in this 
respect, and in noticing this branch of their history, 
perhaps the most interesting that belongs to it, we 
shall first describe some of the most remarkable 
structures of solitary caterpillars, and next advert to 
those formed by the combined exertions of several. 
The h.abitations of the former sort are either 
formed by the union of separate pieces, sometimes 
of different materials, or more simply by folding or 
rolling together the leaves of plants ; and they are 
designed either for the protection of the caterpillar 
during its lifetime, or the reception of the chrj’salis 
into which it is subsequently converted. Several 
form a covering for their bodies similar to that of 
the PliryganidoB, or Case-flies, with which they move 
about like a snail or any other of the shell-bearing 
molluscEe. Of these one of the most curious is the 
larvse of a small Tinea, which has not imaptly been 
n.amed the stone-mason caterpillar. It forms a 
sheath for its body, or a kind of moveable tent, by 
agglutinatinginto a compact structure, small particles 
of stone detached from the wall on which it lives. 
This miniature tent is of a conical shape, somewhat 
curved, open at both ends, and borne rather obliquely. 
