Dec., 1892. 
DOMICILES. 
273 
being rapidly weathered into exactly the same colour, it is 
almost impossible to find it as long as the beast is inside. 
Speaking for myself, I have often looked for them, and those 
which I have found have always been empty. Of course, when 
they are empty, they are easy enough to find ; your eye is 
attracted to the place by the hole whereby the perfect insect 
has escaped. I should very much like to know if even a 
wood-pecker—which can extract larvae from the middle of a 
branch of a willow—could get through with its powerful beak 
the outside coating of the Puss-moth pupa-case, I should be 
inclined to bet on the Puss-motli. Asa contrast to this take 
the chrysalis case of that rare moth, the Lobster, of which I 
exhibit a specimen. This singular larva—shaped something 
like a cross between a shrimp and an earwig—lives on the 
beech tree in the end of the autumn. When it is full fed, 
instead of spinning a proper cocoon like other Bombvcoids, 
or going down into the earth as so many of its own relations 
do, it considers it sufficient to fasten together two beech 
leaves, turn into a chrysalis inside this simple egg-shaped 
domicile, and in that condition trust itself to the chapter of 
accidents. Let us see what will happen. Occasionally, in a 
very sheltered situation, when the beech is a young and com¬ 
pact one, and if the winter is unusually free from strong 
wind the dry leaves will remain all the winter on the tree. 
I have found them thickly clothing the trees so late as March 
—in fact till they are pushed aside by the new growth of the 
spring. Well, if this happens, of course the beast will be quite 
safe, but this will rarely occur ; much oftener the leaves 
will get looser until one fine day—or rather one very wet day 
—they will be beaten down by the rain or blown down by the 
wind. It is sad—from a collector’s point of view—to think 
of this fine, rare moth lying in such an insecure position all 
the winter—stifled by the wet weeds that surround it; 
trampled on by a passing beast; or at the mercy of any half- 
starved field mouse or centipede that has the happy 
inspiration to see what there is between those two beech 
leaves that seem to bulge out in the middle. On the specimen 
that I show of this cocoon—if it can be called a cocoon—you 
will see only one of the two beech leaves ; the other is torn 
away to show the texture of the fine silk with which this 
singular domicile is lined and attached, and on which you 
will still see very plainly the ribs of the upper leaf that has 
been taken away, almost as if the leaf had been stamped in a 
mould. Before I finally leave the Puss-moth, I should like to 
mention the very similar cocoons of a smaller relation of the 
Puss, most appropriately named the Kitten. I show four 
