1895-] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 



A CURIOUS HAMMOCK AND ITS MAKER. 



Corisciiim cuculipennellum Hiibner. 

 By M. V. SLINGERLAND, Ithaca, N. Y. 



In 1890 I noticed that several of the leaves on a young ash tree 

 near my office window had been rolled into peculiar cones by 

 some insect. The same year, while reading- that quaint and 

 charming little volume on " Insect Transformations," written by 

 Rennie three-score years before, I found, on page 324, an inter- 

 esting account (from Bonnet) of this or a similar ingenious cone- 

 maker. This account led me to study the insect more closely, 

 with the results given below. 



I succeeded in rearing some of the adult insects in July, 1891. 

 In the figure A is shown one of the grayish fuscous moths, 

 about three times natural size ; the markings on the wings are of 

 a dark-brown color. A specimen was sent to Dr. Fernald, who 

 finally decided (in January, 1893) that it was a new species ; and 

 he gave it the manuscript name of Coriscium slingerlandella. 

 Anyone whose name has thus been applied to some insect can 

 understand the peculiar interest with which I then looked upon 

 the little creature. But Dr. Fernald had sent one of my moths 

 to Lord Walsingham in February, 1892. Nearly a year later, 

 and about a month after Dr. Fernald had named the moth, word 

 came from Lord Walsingham that the insect was identical with 

 one of Hiibner' s species, cuculipennellum. Dr. Fernald has 

 called attention to the fact that the insect had never been ob- 

 served in this country before ("Canadian Entomologist," xxv, 

 196). It was with a slight twinge of regret that I relabeled my 

 specimens with the equally long name, and proceeded to search 

 the literature for some account of its habits which might sup- 

 plement my observations. I found that Ragonot had given a 

 detailed account of its life-history in 1873 (Bull, de Soc. Ent. de 

 France, pp. 166-168). 



The following account of the life-history of this curious ham- 

 mock-maker is drawn from my observations and from the accounts 

 of Rennie and Ragonot : The pretty little moths emerge in the 

 latter part of Summer or early Fall and doubtless hibernate. 

 They come forth in the Spring and "deposit a single egg upon 

 the upper surface of the leaf by the side of the mid-rib near the 

 tip. A week or ten days later the larva leaves the egg and 



