
LEPIDOPTERA. 279 
caterpillar has the form of a worm, and is of a glossy whiteness: 
‘with a few hairs thinly sprinkled over it and a grey line on 
its back. It is enclosed in a tube, or sheath, 
lopen at both ends, in the interior of which 
lis a sort of tissue of wool,. sometimes blue, 
‘sometimes green, sometimes red, according to 
the colour of the stuff to which the insect pig. 293—The Woollen Moth 
jattaches itself and which it despoils. The (“7% 
‘exterior of this sheath is, on the contrary, formed of silk made 
iby the insect itself, of a whitish colour. 
The caterpillars are hardly hatched before they begin to clothe 
ithemselves. Réaumur observed one of these worms during the 
}operation of enlarging its case. To do this it put its head out of 







rere 











QQ ——_—— 




Fig. 294.—Larve of the Woollen Moth (Tinea tapezclia) 
one of the extremities of its sheath, and looked about eagerly, to 
the right and to the left, for those bits of wool which suited it 
| best for weaving in. In Fig. 294, we see two larvee occupied in 
eating a piece of cloth. 
“The larva changes its place continually and very quickly,” 
jsays Réaumur. “If the threads of wool which are near it are not 
‘such as it desires, it draws sometimes more than half its body 
| out of its case to go and look for better ones further off. If it 
finds a bit that pleases, the head remains fixed for an instant ; it 
then seizes the thread with the two mandibles which are below its 
head, tears the bit out after redoubled efforts, and immediately 



















