STUDIES ON THE TRICHOPTERA OF WISCONSIN. 
CHARLES T. VORHIES. 
The life-histories ancl habits of this interesting but somewhat 
neglected group have heretofore received but little attention in 
America. With the exception of a paper by Betten (1901), 
and one by Morton on the family Hydroptilidse (1905), the 
metamorphosis of none of our species has been described. Since 
the imagos are rather short-lived and inconspicuous, and since, 
if the group is of any economic importance whatever, it is as 
lar vrc rather than as adults, it seems highly desirable that our 
knowledge of the life-histories should be extended. In Europe 
much of this work has been done in recent years, the admirable 
work of Klapalek having served, probably, as the initial stim¬ 
ulus. In this work (1888, 1893) very complete descriptions of 
the larvae, pupae, and cases of 53 species are given. At present, 
Morton (1905), Ris (1903), Silfvenius (1902, ’03, ’05), Struck 
(1903), Ulmer (1903, ’05, ’07), and others are carrying on 
the work. Thienemann has done important work on the biol¬ 
ogy of the pupae (1904, ’05), Silfvenius has produced a large 
paper on post-embryonal development (1907), and internal 
metamorpliic changes have been treated by Liibben (1907), 
E. Russ (1907), and A. L. Russ (1908). 
That the group may be of considerable economic importance 
in some localities is shown by Hudson (1903), from whose work 
may be noted the following summary. The contents of sixty 
trout stomachs consisted of a total of 4,804 Heuroptera, 662 
other insects, and 28 animals not insects. Of the 4,804 Heu- 
roptera, 4,241 were Trichoptera. The author is careful to point 
out that, owing to their easy identification when ..found in the 
stomach, their importance as food may be here slightly exag- 
