Insect Homes. 45 



Those small but so important insects which we call Scale Insects 

 (Fam. Goccidae) must be considered among the housebuilders. In this 

 Family the female makes a covering for herself in the form of a scale 

 while the male is winged and free living. The coverings of these insects 

 vary somewhat, being rudimentary in some, waxy in others, and often 

 hard and chitinous. It is worthy of notice that in the control of these 

 insects it is against their homes that measures are directed and in this 

 way the young as well as the adults are destroyed. 



Hardly to be considered as home builders are the FidgoriJae or 

 Lanternflies and the Cercopidae or Froghoppers, both belonging to the 

 Order Hemiptera, but they might be mentioned here on account of 

 their methods of protecting their young. 



For our example of the Falgoridae we may consider the 

 beautifu Ishell-like insect so common on Saman trees (Pithecolibium Soman) 

 in this colony and known scientifically as Poekilloptera phaloenoides L. 

 The young of this insect are covered with a thick wooly excretion and 

 when abundant in the dry season they thickly cover the limbs of these 

 trees giving one the impression of a light fall of snow. This Family is best 

 represented in Tropical America where the largest forms are to be found. 



The habits of the Cercopidae or Froghoppers are well known and 

 the name of ' spittle insects ' comes from the habit the nymphs have of 

 surrounding themselves with a froth-like excretion. 



Different from all the homes we have studied are those of the 

 Caddice flies (Order Trichoplera) for here we have subaquatic dwellings, 

 the earlier stages of these insects being passed under water. Both the 

 type of dwelling ami the material used differ according to genera, some of 

 the simpler forms covering themselves with bits of stick arranged longi- 

 tudinally and held together by silken threads, while other forms arrange 

 the bits of stick horizontally and even cover them with moss and snails, 

 both dead and living. Other forms again make their homes of stones; all, 

 however, keep the material from which the home is erected together by 

 means of silkeu threads. 



Probably the most curious dwellings made by Caddice flies are thoso 

 found beneath rocks and in waterfalls. They are often very simple con- 

 sisting only of a few pebbles attached to the rock by threads, and between 

 these pebbles the worm maites a perfect tube of silk in which it lives. 

 These Caddice flies are fishermen and if one looks, their seine can be 

 found, stretched between t>vo stones, usually funnel-shaped, and opening 

 up stream ; they thus form traps for the small creatures that come rushing 

 down with the current and which form the food of this carnivorous group 

 of Caddice flies. When these nets occur on the brinks of waterfalls they 

 assume the form of semi-elliptical cups which are kept distended by the 

 current 



