394 
STRANGE DWELLINGS . 
made its tube, it can be shifted to a black cloth, and when it 
has cut the longitudinal slit, and has half filled it up, it can be 
transferred to a piece of scarlet cloth, so that the comple- 
mentary colours of green and scarlet are brought into juxtapo- 
sition, and ‘ thrown up ’ by the contrast with the black. 
The caterpillar is not very particular as to the kind of material 
which it employs, and on which it feeds. Mr. Rennie makes the 
following observations on one of these creatures, whose proceed- 
ings he had watched. 4 The caterpillar first took up its abode 
in a specimen of the ghost-moth ( Hepialus hiimnli ), where, find- 
ing few suitable materials for building, it had recourse to the 
cork of the drawer, with the chips of which it made a structure, 
almost as warm as it would have done from wool. Whether it 
took offence at our disturbing it one day, or whether it did not 
find sufficient food in the body of the ghost-moth, we know not; 
but it left its cork house, and travelled about eighteen inches, 
selected the “ old lady ” moth (Mortno mctura ), one of the largest 
insects in the drawer, and built a new apartment, composed 
partly of cork as before, and partly of bits clipped out of the 
moth’s wings. 
4 We have seen these caterpillars form their habitations of 
every sort of insect, from a butterfly to a beetle, and the soft, 
feathery wings of moths answer their purpose very well ; but 
when they fall in with such hard materials as the musk-beetle, 
or the large scolopendra of the West Indies, they find some 
difficulty in the building. 
‘ When the structure is finished, the insect deems itself secure 
to feed on the materials of the cloth, or other animal matter 
within its reach, provided it is dry and free from fat or grease, 
which Reaumur found it would not touch. For building, it 
always selects the straightest and loosest pieces of wool ; but for 
food it prefers the shortest and most compact ; and to procure 
these, it eats into the body of the stuff, rejecting the pile or 
nap, which it necessarily cuts across at .the origin and permits 
to fall, leaving it threadbare, as if it had been much worn.’ 
From the account which has just been given, it is evident 
that the caterpillar must be able to turn completely round in 
