CHAPTER VI 



SUPERFAMILY NePTICULOIDEA 

 FAMILY NEPTICULIDAE 



Almost any thicket or fence-row will yield a supply of 

 Nepticulid mines and we have very many common North 

 American species. Nearly all of them belong in the genus 

 Nepticula, which seems to have an almost unlimited number 

 of species. In a comprehensive paper on the American 

 species of this family, Miss Braun (1917) lists some fifty- 

 four species known in the adult state. Many of these she 

 herself has reared; a large proportion of the others have 

 been reared either by Dr. Brackenridge Clemens, or by 

 V. T. Chambers. Continued life-history work will doubtless 

 reveal a large number of additional species within our 

 boundaries. 



With the exception of some gall-making species of Ecto- 

 demia all the known larvae of this family are miners in 

 leaves or, more rarely, in fruit and bark. In most cases 

 their host plants are deciduous shrubs and trees though some 

 occur on herbaceous plants. 



The egg. The minute oval eggs are sealed upon the sur- 

 face of the leaves with specks of cement which show as 

 minute glistening dots even to the naked eye. The larvae 

 eat their way from the eggs directly into the leaf tissue. It 

 has been observed by Sich that the larva of a European 

 species, N. acetosae, takes two hours to get its head half way 

 into the leaf, nearly six hours to get head and thorax in, and 

 twelve hours to get completely in and assume its regular 

 mining position with the venter uppermost. By sectioning 

 mined leaves Miss Braun has ascertained that the larvae 



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