91 
COCOONS, BUT NOT OF SILK. 
cannot help exciting our warmest admiration. 
9 
Nothing is overlooked or forgotten; and the 
caterpillar, so humble and despised, seems gifted 
with a foresight almost miraculous. 
Some caterpillars have but a scanty supply of 
gum, and are obliged to call in the aid of other 
materials than that of silk, to make their cocoons. 
Two of these materials are found within, or 
upon their own bodies. 
When the caterpillar has inclosed itself in a 
slight framework of threads, it ejects three or 
four round balls of a paste-like substance, which 
it pats down with its head, all over the inside of 
the framework, just as a mason might cement 
a wall. The paste soon gets dry, and becomes a 
white powder, that tills up every gap, and makes 
the cocoon so thick you cannot see through it. 
The other material is the caterpillar’s own 
hair; for some, you know, are well provided with 
this kind of clothing. But as the moth did not 
scruple to pluck off the down from her body to 
make a nest for her eggs, so the caterpillar wil¬ 
lingly robs itself of its hair, for the sake of the 
future chrysalis. 
It cuts and tears it off with its jaws, and 
scatters it on every side, and pushes it among 
the threads of silk, so as to make the cocoon very 
thick and strong. 
