The orange Terebinth-lice, imprisoned in galls, whether horn-shaped or rounded like apricots, attach to their hinder parts a long train of extreme delicacy, which the slightest touch reduces to dust. In the Dorthesiæ, on the other hand, we see a complete garment, a close-fitting coat of indefinite length, though fragile and breaking off in particles under the point of a needle, just as a brittle rind might do. Nothing could be prettier than the cloak of this large Louse, either in shape or in colour. It is a uniform dead white, more pleasing to the eye than even the white of milk. The forepart of the garment is a jacket of curly knots arranged in four longitudinal rows between which other, smaller knots are distributed. The hinder part is a fringe of ten slats gradually increasing in width and spreading outwards, not unlike the teeth of a comb. The breast is covered by a shirt-front formed of symmetrical plates and pierced with six neatly-rounded holes, through which the brown legs emerge, quite naked and unconstrained. This shirt-front and the curly mantle on the back together form a sort of sleeveless woollen waistcoat with easy-fitting armholes. In the same way the hood is pierced by holes to give free play to the rostrum and the antennæ. All the other parts are covered by the white cloak. This is the winter costume; it covers the whole body but does not extend beyond it. Later, when the laying-season draws near, the garment grows longer, as though the insect, which in reality cannot undergo further change, were growing at a furious rate and trebling its length. Gracefully curved like the prow of a gondola, the new portion is furrowed above by wide parallel grooves; underneath it is finely streaked, almost smooth. The end is cut off square. The magnifying-glass here reveals a transverse button-hole plugged with fine cotton-wool. The material of the garment is everywhere brittle, fusible and inflammable; when laid on paper it leaves a slightly translucent mark. From these qualities we judge it to be a sort of wax, similar to beeswax. In order to obtain it in some other form than that of tiny particles removed from the insect, I collect a handful of Dorthesiæ and subject them to the action of boiling water. The waxen coverings melt and dissolve into an oily liquid which floats on the surface; the denuded insects sink to the bottom. On cooling, the thin floating layer sets into an amber-yellow sheet.