LEPIDOPTERA. 319 



other end. The female has neither wings, antennae, nor legs, 

 and is said to remain always within its cocoon. Some years 

 ao-o, a case or cocoon of an Oikelicus, which was found on 

 Long Island, was presented to me. It was smaller than the 

 West Indian specimens, measuring only an inch and a half 

 without its loop, and was covered with a few little sticks 

 longitudinally arranged. It contained a female chrysalis, with 

 the remains of the caterpillar. In Philadelphia and the vicin- 

 ity, cases of a similar kind are very common on many of the 

 trees," particularly on the arbor vitfe, larch, and hemlock, which 

 are often very much injured by the insects inhabiting them. 

 These are there popularly called drop-v)orms and basket-ivorms. 

 We have, in Massachusetts, another sack-bearer, which does 

 not appear to have been described, and differs so much both 

 from Psyche and Oiketictis, when arrived at maturity, as to 

 induce me to give it another generical name. I therefore call 

 it Perophora Melsheimerii* Melsheimer's sack-bearer. A case 

 of this insect, containing a living caterpillar, was brought to 

 me towards the end of September, by a student of Harvard 

 College, Mr. H. O. White, who found it on an oak-tree in 

 Cambridge. This case was nearly an inch and a half long, 

 and about half an inch in diameter. It was not regularly oval, 

 but somewhat flattened on its lower side. It consisted exter- 

 nally of two oblong oval pieces of a leaf, fastened together in 

 the neatest manner by their edges, but the seams made a little 

 ridge on each side of the case ; this had become dry and faded, 

 and was lined within with a thick and tough layer of brownish 

 silk, in which there was left, at each end, a circular opening 

 just big enough for the caterpillar to pass through. The cater- 

 pillar was cylindrical, about as thick as a common pipe-stem, 

 of a light reddish brown color with a paler line along the 

 back; it was rough with little elevated points; its head and 

 the top of the first ring were black, hard, and rough also. The 

 head was provided with a pair of jointed feelers, which the 



* Named in honor of Dr. F. E. Mclsheimcr (the son of the Rev. F. V. Mel- 

 sheiraer, the father of American Entomology, as he has been called), from 

 •whom 1 have received specimens of this insect, and its curious case. 



