Consequently, the texture of the cocoon was of a rather singular nature. The silken threads had been fused together so as to form a translucent cocoon, looking as if it had been made of gelatine, and being nearly equally transparent, the chrysalis being plainly visible through its walls. The cocoon was thin and elastic, as if it had been made of very thin horn; and it was so tightly fixed to the mantelpiece as well as to the tumbler, that it could not be removed without damage. The moth suffered no injury from the privation which the larva had to undergo. The cocoons of the puss-moth are to be found upon the trunks of trees, but they are so rough, and so greatly resembling the bark, with which, indeed, their walls are strengthened, that an inexperienced eye would fail to detect them. Even when they have been pointed out to a novice in practical entomology, he has failed to find them again whenever his eye has been taken off their rugged outlines.] A question will here suggest itself to the curious inquirer, how the moth, which is not, like the caterpillar, furnished with mandibles for gnawing, can find its way through so hard a wall. To resolve this question, it is asserted by recent naturalists (see Kirby and Spence, vol. iii. p. 15) that the moth is furnished with a peculiar acid for dissolving itself a passage. We have a specimen of the case of a puss-moth, in which, notwithstanding its strength, one of the ichneumons had contrived to deposit its eggs. In the beginning of summer, when we expected the moth to appear, and felt anxious to observe the recorded effects of the acid, we were astonished to find a large orange cuckoo-fly make its escape; while another, which attempted to follow, stuck by the way and died. On detaching the cell from the box, we found several others, which had not been able to get out, and had died in their cocoons. (J. R.) [Illustration: Ichneumon (_Cphion luteum_), figured from the one mentioned.]