294 POPULAR SCRIPTURE ZOOLOGY.

insect. The slightness of this habitation is well known to
every one who has attended to the curious operations of the
silkworm, Phalena mori*, or of the tribes indigenous to the
plants of our own country, as Phalena pavonia, the Em-
peror Moth, PA. Caja, the Tiger Moth, PA. Vinula, Poplar
or Willow Moth. Of these, some construct a solitary
dwelling, while others, as Ph. fuscicauda, or the Brown-tail
Moth, are gregarious, vast numbers residing together under
one common web, marshalled with the most exact regula-
rity. The web of the cloth-moths, the principal of which
is Ph. vestianella, is formed of the very substance of the
cloth on which it reposes, devoured for this purpose, and
afterwards worked into a tubular case, with open extremi-
ties, and generally approaching to the colour of the cloth
-by which the moth-worm is nourished.”

In the 51st chapter of Isaiah is a distinct allusion to the
destroying propensities of these little creatures: “For the
moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall
eat: them like wool, but my righteousness shall be for ever,
and my salvation from generation to generation.” “Two
species of Zinea, in their larva or maggot state, appear to be
here mentioned under the names of ask and sas, the one as

* The Bombyx mori of more modern writers.