44 
SOLITARY NESTS. 
It has wrapped two or three leaves together, by 
winding its silken threads round and round them, 
and has left a passage within, large enough to 
live in, and where it can go up and down at 
pleasure. 
The soft silky catkins of the willow have 
furnished another little caterpillar with the 
means of making its nest. It works its way into 
the seed, surrounded as it is with long down; and 
then loosening it from the stalk, carries it off 
as a moveable tent. It is called a muff tent, 
because the shaggy down of the seed looks a 
little like fur. 
If you were to gather a handful of moss 
from the top of^an old wall, you would be 
almost certain to find amongst it the tiny 
nest of a caterpillar.* It 
has gnawed the leaves and 
branches of the green moss 
into little pieces, and ar¬ 
ranged them so as to form 
the inside of its nest; while 
the bits of earth, that were 
moss nest. hanging from the rootlets 
of the moss, have been ar¬ 
ranged on the outside, and form the outer wall. 
But so well has the caterpillar contrived, that 
* Pontiarapae. 
