Basket-Carriers. 131 
the sac, these fastenings are being continually strengthened, 
and thus one piece after another is added, and so the basket 
grows. 
While the case of the Basket-worm, and even that part of 
its body which it chooses to expose to view, are known to 
the casual observer, yet but few persons have ever seen the 
mature insect. The female moth is wingless, and never 
leaves the bag, but makes her way to its lower orifice, and 
there awaits the attendance of the male. She is not only 
without wings, but is devoid of legs also, being, in short, 
nothing more than a yellowish bag of eggs with a ring of 
soft, pale-brown, silky hair near the tail. The male, on the 
other hand, has transparent wings and a black body, and is 
very active on the wing during the warmer portions of the 
day. After pairing the female deposits her eggs, inter- 
mingled with fawn-colored down, within the empty pupa- 
case, and when this task is completed works her way out of 
the case, drops exhausted to the ground and dies. 
Though a Southern rather than a Northern insect, yet it 
is found as far north as New Jersey and New York, and 
occasionally in Massachusetts. It is extremely local in 
character, abounding in one particular neighborhood and 
totally unknown a few miles away. Where they occur in 
abundance they often almost entirely defoliate the trees they 
attack, but this can be easily prevented by gathering the 
cases containing the eggs for the next brood during the 
winter and destroying them. MHand-picking the cases with 
the worms in them, where their ravages are confined to 
small trees and shrubbery, will also help to hold them in 
check. Nature has provided two species of ichneumon for 
their destruction. One of them, Crypius inguzsitor, is about 
two-fifths of an inch in length, and the other, Hemzteles 
thyridopteryx, is nearly one-third of an inch. Five or six 
of this latter species will sometimes occupy the body of a 
single caterpillar, and after destroying their victim spin for 
themselves tough, white, silken cocoons within the bag. 
