3 86 



The Moths and Butterflies 



bag-worm moth, Thyridopteryx ephemera] or mis (Fig. 550), the females of 

 which are wingless, the males with blackish body and clear brown-veined 

 wings which expand an inch. This moth is the most common and wide- 

 spread of the thirteen moth species which constitute the family Psychidae, as 

 represented in this country. In the Southern States a common species is 

 Abbott's bag-worm, Oiketicus abbotti, whose larvae make bags with the bits 

 of twigs fastened regularly transversely, the male moth expanding ij inches 

 and being sable-brown with a clear bar in the middle of each fore wing. 

 Smaller bag-worm moths are the three species of the genus Psyche, the males 

 expanding from inch to f inch, P. conjederata, the best known, being all 



FIG. 549. The locust-tree carpenter-moth, Prionoxystus robin-ice, male and female 

 moths, young larva and empty pupal case. (After Lugger; moths and pupal case 

 natural size; young larva enlarged.) 



blackish with opaque wings, P. gloveri, a Southern species, dark brown through- 

 out, and P. carbonaria, a Texas form, brownish black with subtranslucent 

 wings. The females of all the Psychids are wingless. The larvae, after 

 moving about over the tree and feeding until full-grown, pupate within their 

 bags, and the issuing wingless grub-like females simply remain in the sac 

 until found by a flying male, after which they lay their eggs in the bag and 

 die. The male Psychids can be readily distinguished from other moths by 

 the growing together of the anal veins of the fore wings until they appear 

 to be a single branching vein (Fig. 552). 



The smoky-moths, Pyromorphidae, of which but fifteen species occur 

 in the United States, are small, expanding from inch to i inch (a single 

 Western species expands i inches), and with blackish ground-color on bodv 



