1 893-] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 85 



in the larva state that this insect is useful to man, and then only 

 when it is full grown and prepares for pupation, spinning a very- 

 dense and thick silken cocoon which has the advantage over all 

 others that it is spun continuously, and allows itself to be un- 

 wound very readily. The silk is secreted by the caterpillar in 

 two long glands, one situated on each side of the body, close to 

 the digestive tract. These glands, taken from the full-grown 

 caterpillar before it has begun to spin its cocoon, make the silk 

 "gut," so well known to fishermen. 



Following next in the series we have the Clisocampidae. These 

 include the genera CHsiocavipa, Artace and Tolype. We have 

 here a very decided shortening of the median cell, and a tendency 

 to a crowding of the veins of the fore wings toward the costa. 

 The secondaries have no frenulum, and this character may per- 

 haps be made of more use systematically than has been the case 

 heretofore. Prof. Comstock, if I mistake not, proposes the term 

 "frenatae" for one series of families, though I do not remember 

 exactly what limitation was to be given the term. In both wings 

 in this family vein 5 belongs to the median series ; that is, it 

 arises with or near 4, and not with or near 6. The head, as is 

 usual in this series of families, is small, sunken, the mouth parts 

 are obsolete, and the antennae are pectinated in both sexes, much 

 more evidently in the male. The wings are moderate in size, 

 rounded, not angulate at any point, and proportionately some- 

 what larger in the male than in the female. The larv« make a 

 silken cocoon in which they pupate, but the silk is small in quan- 

 tity and cannot be reeled. The genera referred to this family 

 differ quite considerably in appearance, and to some extent also 

 in habit; our common Eastern species of Clisiocampa is the C. 

 americana of Harris, the larva of which is well known as the 

 "tent caterpillar." The eggs of this species are laid in belts on 

 the small twigs of the food-plant. 



The remainder of the Bombyces of my list, so far as they are 

 known to me, may be referred to the Lasiocampidce. In this 

 family we find the shortening of the cell carried to the extreme, 

 while the veins are, as a consequence, unusually long. There is, 

 further, a crowding of the veins to the costal region on the one 

 hand, and a tendency to a branching of the veins of the costal 

 series on the other. In the secondaries the costal is connected 

 with the subcostal, and usually there is quite a large cell formed 



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