FAMILY LIMNEPHILID/E 



The members of this family are smaller than those in the 

 group which we have just discussed but they seem confined very 

 largely to temperate regions. They are common in Canada, 

 Nova Scotia and Labrador, the Northwest Territory and Alaska, 

 but some forms extend down into Louisiana and Georgia. The 

 habits of the larvae are very variable. Some live in torrents, others 

 in still water. The cases are free, but the materials employed 

 vary in all possible manners. It is some of the members of this 

 group which employ snail-shells, and Comstock has found shells 

 containing living snails securely fastened to the case of one of 

 these larvae. Thus, he says, "the snail was afforded compara- 

 tively rapid transportation whether it desired it or not." It is 

 also to this group that the single form belongs which lives in 

 moss, the only non-aquatic member of the order. The moss 

 which it inhabits may be at the roots of trees far removed from 

 water. In England caddis worms are used very commonly as 

 bait by fishermen, and it is generally the members of this family 

 which are so used. 



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