FAMILY PSYCHID^E 



" The habits of insects are very mines of interesting knowledge, and it is im- 

 possible carefully to watch the proceedings of any insect, however insignificant, 

 without feeling that no writer of fiction ever invented a drama of such absorbing 

 interest as is acted daily before our eyes, though to indifferent spectators." 



J. G. WOOD. 



A family of small or medium-sized moths, the larvae of which 

 feed in a case composed of silk covered with bits of leaves, grass, 

 twigs, or other vegetable matter, which are often arranged in a 

 very curious manner. From this fact has arisen the custom of 

 calling the caterpillars " basket-worms." In certain species found 

 in Asia and Africa, these "baskets," or "cases," are spiral in 

 form, and so closely resemble the shells of snails that they were, 

 in fact, originally sent to the British Museum as shells by the first 

 person who collected them. The pupa is formed within the 

 larva-case. The males are winged, but the females are without 

 wings. The female in almost all of the genera is possessed of a 

 very lowly organization, being maggot-like, and in truth being 

 little more than an ovary. She is known to deposit her eggs in 

 the larval skin which lines the sack in which she was developed. 

 Copulation takes place through the insertion of the abdomen of 

 the winged male into the sack where the female is concealed. 

 Parthenogenesis is ascertained to occur in one at least of the 

 genera. The moths are obscurely colored. The wings of the 

 males have numerous scales upon them, but they are in many 

 species so loosely attached that they are lost in the first few 

 moments of flight. In consequence the male insects appear to 

 have diaphanous wings. 



Eight genera, including the genus Solenobia, which has by 

 most authors heretofore been reckoned among the Timidce, are 

 attributed by Dyar to this family as occurring within our territory. 

 Much remains to be learned both as to the structure and the life- 

 history of these interesting, but obscure, moths. 



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