Part 39

Huber on Bees, p. 415.

Spectacle de la Nature, vol. i.

North American Rev., Oct. 1828, p. 355.

"Hibernia dives lactis ac mellis insula."--Beda, Hist. Eccles. i. 7.

Deut. xxxii. 13.

Psalm lxxxi. 16.

Forbes, Orien. Mem. i.

Amer. Q. Rev., iii. p. 383.

Roy. Mil. Chron. quoted by Kirby and Spence.

"Cantu querulæ rumpent arbusta cicadæ."--Georg. iii. 328.

A line is about the twelfth part of an inch.

Introd., vol. i. p. 457.

Roesel, cl. ii., Pap. Nocturn., tab. xx. fig. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

See p. 100.

Contemplation de la Nature, part XV. chap. 38.

A cement prepared of volcanic earth, or lava.

It is justly remarked by Réaumur, that when caterpillars are left at liberty among their native plants, it is only by lucky chance they can be observed building their cocoons, because the greater number abandon the plants upon which they have been feeding, to spin up in places at some distance. In order to see their operations, they must be kept in confinement, particularly in boxes with glazed doors, where they may be always under the eye of the naturalist. In such circumstances, however, we may be ignorant what building materials we ought to provide them with for their structures. A red caterpillar, with a few tufts of hair, which Réaumur found in July feeding upon the flower bunches of the nettle, and refusing to touch the leaves, began in a few days to prepare its cocoon, by gnawing the paper lid of the box in which it was placed. This, of course, was a material which it could not have procured in the fields, but it was the nearest in properties that it could procure; for, though it had the leaves and stems of nettles, it never used a single fragment of either. When Réaumur found that it was likely to gnaw through the paper lid of the box, and might effect its escape, he furnished it with bits of rumpled paper, fixed to the lid by means of a pin; and these it chopped down into such pieces as it judged convenient for its structure, which it took a day to complete. The moth appeared four weeks after, of a brownish-black colour, mottled with white, or rather grey, in the manner of lace.

Bonnet also mentions more than one instance in which he observed caterpillars making use of paper, when they could not procure other materials.

Kirby, in 'Linn. Trans.,' vol. v. p. 246, and Introd. ii.

See Fig. d, p. 238.

Réaumur, 'Mém. Hist. Insectes,' iii. 70.

'Contemplation de la Nature,' part xii. chap. x. note.

'Animal Biography,' vol. iii. p. 330, Third Edition.

Bonnet, xi. p. 204; Kirby and Spence, 'Introduction,' i. 464, Fifth Edition.

Bonnet, vol. ix. p. 203.

'Mém. Hist. Insect.' iii. p. 106.

Réaumur, iii. p. 130.

Bonnet, 'Contempl. de la Nature,' part xii.