EOSY HISPA AND DEOP-WOKM. 





plants in Tennessee, are the drop-worms, or basket-worms, referred to on page 319 of 

 my Treatise. To their destructive powers I can testify from my own sorrowful 

 experience ; a fine Arbor Vit<ie tree, on which I had placed, in May, 1850, some of 

 the cocoons received during the previous autumn from Philadelphia, not having yet 

 recovered from the effects of the ravages of the insects, though the latter were limited 

 to one summer. These drop-worms are exceedingly curious and interesting in all 

 their habits and transformations, the history of which might form the subject of a 

 long memoir. But neither time not space will permit me to offer any more than a 

 very short sketch of their history, which is drawn up from notes written in the years 

 1849 and 1850, when I had a colony of the living insects in keeping. 



These insects inhabit the Swamp Cedar (^Cupressus Thyoides), Arbor Vitse {Thuya 

 occidentalis), Larch {Lar'ix Americana)^ and Hemlock (Abies Canadensis), with other 

 resinous trees ; but occasionally they attack the Linden, the Maple, and even fruit 

 trees. They are common in the Middle and Southern States, and probably most of 

 the Western States also ; but hitherto they have not been discovered in New England. 

 They belong to Mr. Guilding's American genus Oiketicus ; and, as they do not seem 

 to have received a scientific name, I shall venture to give them that of Oiketicus con- 

 ifcrarum, from their preference to trees of the cone-bearing tribe. The species is 

 probably the same as the one noticed by my lamented friend, the late Mr. Edward 

 DouBLEDAY, in Newman's Entomologist, No. V, pp 9V-98 ; but the male insect does 

 not agree with the figure, copied from one of Abbot's drawings in the same work, 

 nor does it correspond any better to Guilding's figure of Oiketicus McCayi, though 

 about the same size. 



As soon as the drop-worms are hatched, they make and conceal themselves in little 

 silken cases, open at each end, and covered externally with bits of leaves, twigs, &c. 

 These cases are enlarged, as the insect increases in size, by the addition of more 

 materials within and without, and finally become oblong oval pods, with long some- 

 what cylindrical extremities. The inhabitant carries its house about on its back, as 

 a snail does its shell, when it is moving and feeding; fastens it by a few threads when 

 it wishes to rest; or lets it drop by a thread when it wishes to descend from one 

 branch to another : hence, in Philadelphia, where these insects are abundant, they 

 have acquired the name of drop-worms. These worms attain their full size by the 

 middle of September, and then fasten the upper end of their cases to a twig of the 

 tree by a strong silken band. The weight of the cas^, with its elasticity, closes the 

 upper orifice, from which the worm has been accustomed to protrude its head and 

 fore legs when feeding ; the insect then turns round within its pod, so as to direct its 

 head toward the lower cylindrical orifice, and thus awaits its change to a chrysalis. 

 The worms which produce the female insects are much larger than those of the males, 

 and there is the same difterence in the size of their pods and of their chrysalids. 

 Female worms attain the length of one inch and a half, those of the males only about 

 one inch. The head and fore part of the body are white, spotted Avith black ; the 

 of the body is livid or blackish. The first three segments are each providec 

 of stout jointed claw-like legs. The tail and four intermediate segmen 



