414 LEPIDOPTEBA. 



provided with numerous minute clinging hooks. When they 

 are about to change their forms, their cases serve them in- 

 stead of cocoons ; they fasten them by silken threads to 

 the plant on which they live, stop up the holes in them, and 

 then throw off their caterpillar-skins. The chrysalids are 

 remarkably blunt at the hinder extremity, and are provided 

 with transverse rows of minute teeth on the back of the ab- 

 dominal rings. The moths, of which there are several kinds 

 produced by these case-bearing caterpillars, differ very much 

 from each other ; but, as they all agree in their habits and 

 general appearance while in the caterpillar form, they are 

 brought together in one family called PSYCHADJE, the Psy- 

 chians, from Psyche, a genus belonging to it. The Germans 

 give these insects a more characteristic name, that of Sack- 

 trager* -that is, sack-bearers, and Hiibner called them Cane- 

 pkvrw, or basket-carriers, because the cases of some of them 

 are made of little sticks somewhat like a wicker basket. 

 The cases of the insects belonging to the European genus 

 Psyche are covered with small leaves, bits of grass or of 

 sticks, placed lengthwise on them. The chrysalis of the 

 male Psyche pushes itself half-way out of the case when 

 about to set free the moth ; the female, on the contrary, 

 never leaves its cocoon, is not provided with wings, and 

 its antenna? and legs are very short. The male Psyche 

 resembles somewhat the same sex of Orgyia, having pretty 

 broad wings, and antenna? that are doubly feathered on the 

 under side ; it has also a bristle and hook to hold the wings 

 together. The cases of Oiketicus^ another and much larger 

 kind of sack-bearer, inhabiting the West Indies and South 

 America, are covered with pieces of leaves and of sticks 

 arranged either longitudinally or transversely. The cases 

 of some of the females measure four or five inches in length. 

 Some which I received from Cuba were covered with little 



* See German's " Magazin der Entomologie," Vol. I. p. 19. 

 t This name ought to be (Eceticug. See Mr. Guilding's description of the 

 insect in the " Transactions of the Linnaean Society," Vol. XV. 



