"When I said that, boys, I was thinking of the clothes-moth.[4] They make their coats of wool commonly taken from our cloth, and silk drawn from their own mouths; and the strangest thing concerning them is, that when they outgrow their clothes they will piece them to make them larger. Suppose the insect wants it longer, it adds a new ring of wool to the end: suppose it wants it wider, it slits the case or garment, not from one end to the other, for this would leave it naked, but it splits it half-way down the sides, and when it has filled it in with proper pieces, it splits the remaining half, and puts other pieces in them. There is another curious thing about this tailor: it always makes its coat of the same colour with the cloth from which it takes the wool; so that if it has first made its garment of a piece of blue cloth, and is placed on a bit of red cloth when it wishes to enlarge it, you will see its work exactly, for the pieces which it puts in will be red. This is the little fellow, boys, which does so much mischief to our clothes." "Well, Uncle Philip, one can almost forgive his mischief for the sake of his ingenuity. But you have said nothing yet about _needles_; how do these little creatures sew?" "Why, they have what serves as a needle to them: but I can tell you of another animal which sews with a needle a great deal plainer to be seen than that of these little insects." "Pray let us hear of him, Uncle Philip." "I must go among the birds to find this workman. There is a kind of starling, called the orchard starling,[5] about which, Mr. Wilson, a gentleman who has written a great deal concerning the birds of our country, gives a very curious account. He says that this bird commonly hangs its nest from the twigs of an apple-tree, and makes it in a very singular manner. The outside is made of a particular kind of long tough grass, that will bend without breaking, and this grass is knit or sewed through and through in a thousand directions, just as if done with a needle. The little creature does it with its feet and bill. Mr. Wilson says that he one day showed one of these nests to an old lady, and she was so much struck with the work that she asked him, half in earnest, if he did not think that these birds could be taught to _darn stockings_? Mr. Wilson took the pains too to draw out one of these grass threads, and found that it measured thirteen inches, and in that distance the bird who used it had passed it in and out thirty-four times." "Why, this was sewing, sure enough."