Basket- Carriers. 131 



the sac, these fastenings are being continually strengthened, 

 and thus one piece after another is added, and so the basket 

 grows. 



While the case of the Basket-worm, and even that part of 

 its body which it chooses to expose to view, are known to 

 the casual observer, yet but few persons have ever seen the 

 mature insect. The female moth is wingless, and never 

 leaves the bag, but makes her way to its lower orifice, and 

 there awaits the attendance of the male. She is not only 

 without wings, but is devoid of legs also, being, in short, 

 nothing more than a yellowish bag of eggs with a ring of 

 soft, pale-brown, silky hair near the tail. The male, on the 

 other hand, has transparent wings and a black body, and is 

 very active on the wing during the warmer portions of the 

 day. After pairing the female deposits her eggs, inter- 

 mingled with fawn-colored down, within the empty pupa- 

 case, and when this task is completed works her way out of 

 the case, drops exhausted to the ground and dies. 



Though a Southern rather than a Northern insect, yet it 

 is found as far north as New Jersey and New York, and 

 occasionally in Massachusetts. It is extremely local in 

 character, abounding in one particular neighborhood and 

 totally unknown a few miles away. Where they occur in 

 abundance they often almost entirely defoliate the trees they 

 attack, but this can be easily prevented by gathering the 

 cases containing the eggs for the next brood during the 

 winter and destroying them. Hand-picking the cases with 

 the worms in them, where their ravages are confined to 

 small trees and shrubbery, will also help to hold them in 

 check. Nature has provided two species of ichneumon for 

 their destruction. One of them, Cryptus inquisitor, is about 

 two-fifths of an inch in length, and the other, Hemiteles 

 thyridopteryx, is nearly one-third of an inch. Five or six 

 of this latter species will sometimes occupy the body of a 

 single caterpillar, and after destroying their victim spin for 

 themselves tough, white, silken cocoons within the bag. 



