BEARING INSECTS. 255 



be transferred to the top of the collecting-box,, when it can 

 be quieted by chloroform." (Clemens.) Or the moths may 

 be collected in pill-boxes, and then carried home and opened 

 into a larger box filled with fumes of ether or benzine or 

 cyanide of potassium. In pinching any moths on the 

 thorax, as is sometimes done, the form of that region is in- 

 variably distorted, and many of the scales removed. In 

 searching for Micros we must look carefully on the lee 

 side of trees, fences, hedges, and undulations in the ground, 

 for they avoid the wind. Indeed, we can take advantage 

 of this habit of many Micros, and by blowing vigorously on 

 the trunks of trees start the moth off into the net so placed 

 as to intercept it. This method is most productive, C. G. 

 Barrett states, in the "Entomologist's Monthly Magazine," 

 while a steady wind is blowing. 



The larva? vary excessively in the number of legs, sixteen 

 being the usual number, but in several genera (Gracilaria, 

 Lithocolletis, etc.) we only find fourteen ; in Nepticula, 

 though the legs are but poorly developed, they number 

 eighteen ; on the other hand, the larvae of a few of the 

 smaller genera (Antispila, Tinagma, etc.) are absolutely 

 footless. 



In seeking for the larvte, we must remember that most of 

 them are leaf-miners, and their burrows are detected by the 

 waved, brown, withered lines on the surface of leaves, and 

 their fross, or excrement, thrown out at one end. Some 

 are found between united leaves, of which the upper is 

 crumpled. Others construct portable cases which they 

 draw about the trunks of trees, fences, etc. Others burrow 

 in the stems of grass, or in fungi, toadstools, and in the pith 

 of currant or raspberry bushes. Most are solitary, a few 

 gregarious. A bush stripped of its leaves and covered with 

 webs, if not done by Clisiocampa (the American tent-cater- 

 pillar), will witness the work of a Tortrix or Tineid. Buds 

 of unfolded herbs suffer from their attacks, such as the 

 heads of composite flowers which are drawn together and 

 consumed by the larva?. 



