92 
ENTOMOLOGICAL INTELLIGENCE. 
fact to resemble the cells in a miniature bee-hive.* In other 
orders I am only aware of this social instinct in the following 
instances. Reaumur states of the caterpillars of the processionary 
Moths, which reside in lai’ge common tents or nests, “ C’est dans 
leur nid que ces chenilles doivent perdre leur forme et devenir 
chrysalidesand that those of the destructive Yponomeuta Evony- 
raella, which reside in a similar w^eb, construct their cocoons ‘‘a 
un des bouts de leur dernier nid.” In the first part of the Trans¬ 
actions of the Entomological Society, I published an account of a 
gregarious species of Butterfly from ^lexico, in which the chrysa¬ 
lides are arranged within the nest formed by the caterpillars, and 
which very nearly resembles that of some wasps; and in my memoir 
upon the Pomegranate Butterfly of the East Indies, also published 
in the same Transactions, I described the social peculiarities of that 
insect, the chrj^salides of which are placed in society within the 
fruit, previous to arriving at wdiich state the caterpillars must have 
made their w^ay to the outside of the fruit, and spun the web 
(probably in common) which supports the fruit to the stem and 
prevents its falling, and then returned into the fruit. But a much 
more analogous instance of this socialism was described by me in 
the ninth volume of the “ Magazine of Natural History,” in which a 
mass of the cocoons of the Ilithyia sociella (between two and three 
hundred in number, if not indeed considerably more) w^as found in 
the hollow stump of an acacia-tree. The mass measured about 
5 inches in length and 21' inches in diameter, the outer covering 
consisting of a thin layer of floss-silk. I have also seen a nearly 
similar compact congregation of the cocoons of the honey-moth, 
Galleria cereana, wliich feeds in the hive of the honey-bee. 
The other insect described by Mr. Curtis w'as a Brazilian wasp, 
which forms a long truncated conical nest, similar to those figured 
by Reaumur, but having the outside of the nest coated with a fine 
earth or sand. Hitherto those wasps which construct their nests 
of sand have been found to be only solitary in their habits, not 
forming regular combs; all the social species which build combs 
on the contrary being card-makers. Unfortunately Mr. Curtis 
had not cut his nest open, so that it is impossible to determine the 
condition of the interior. Such a difference of habits must, how'- 
ever, most probably involve a difference of structure in the man- 
* Reaumur Mem., tom. ii. pi. xxxv. figs. 7 and 8 ; Mod. Class, of Ins. ii. p. 149, fig. 
Ixxvi. 17. 
