"I will now tell you of another little workman, which I have heard called the cloak-maker, because it makes for itself a mantle which really appears very much like a cloak; and, stranger still, this cloak is lined throughout with silk." "Can it be possible, Uncle Philip?" "Listen, and you shall hear. These mantle-looking cases are made by the _larva_, as it is called, or grub of a little moth which forms a covering of pure silk; this silk it spins from itself; it is not woven so as to appear like our silk, but still it is real silk, and is worked into a great many thin scales, which lap over one another like the scales of a fish. But this is only the lining of the cloak. This little tailor is the field-moth, which first eats what it wants from a green leaf, and then, from the thin membranes left, sets about making its mantle: and it makes it of two pieces cut out and joined together with a seam, just as a tailor would make it." "How does it go to work, Uncle Philip?" "Why, I will give you the account as it was given by a gentleman[3] who was very fond of observing insects, and who watched one of these little creatures. He says that from the thin membrane of the leaf it first cut two pieces just equal in size and of exactly the same shape; each of these pieces was to form one-half of the cloak, and this he says was done wonderfully fast. He noticed, too, that one end of each piece, that which was meant for the bottom of the cloak, was just twice as long as the other end, which was the top. The insect then placed itself between the two pieces while they were lying flat; it afterward brought the two sides where the seam was to be, together, and fastened them at certain places, still leaving, however, considerable spaces open. It then began to turn and twist its body about in all directions, until it moulded the pieces into a hollow form to fit. When it found that it would fit its body, it brought the edges of the seam close together through the whole length, and contrived to sew or fasten them so neatly together, that when the gentleman looked, even with a magnifying-glass, he said he could hardly find the seam. The whole was lined with the silk spun from itself, and was finished in about twelve hours." "Why, this little workman is the strangest of all: but, Uncle Philip, you said there was one of these animal tailors that cut his garment out of _cloth_: pray tell us of him."