386 
The Moths and Butterflies 
bag-worm moth, Thyridopteryx ephemera]ormis (Fig. 550), the females of 
which are wingless, the males with blackish body and clear brown-veined 
wings which expand an inch. This moth is the most common and wide¬ 
spread of the thirteen moth species which constitute the family Psychidse, as 
represented in this country. In the Southern States a common species is 
Abbott’s bag-worm, Oiketicus abbotti, whose larvae make bags with the bits 
of twigs fastened regularly transversely, the male moth expanding ij inches 
and being sable-brown with a clear bar in the middle of each fore wing. 
Smaller bag-worm moths are the three species of the genus Psyche, the males 
expanding from \ inch to ■£ inch, P. confederata, the best known, being all 
Fig. 549.—The locust-tree carpenter-moth, Prionoxystus robinioe , male and female 
moths, young larva and empty pupal case. (After Lugger; moths and pupal case 
natural size; young larva enlarged.) 
blackish with opaque wings, P. gloveri, a Southern species, dark brown through¬ 
out, and P. carbonaria, a Texas form, brownish black with subtranslucent 
wings. The females of all the Psychids are wingless. The larvae, after 
moving about over the tree and feeding until full-grown, pupate within their 
bags, and the issuing wingless grub-like females simply remain in the sac 
until found by a flying male, after which they lay their eggs in the bag and 
die. The male Psychids can be readily distinguished from other moths by 
the growing together of the anal veins of the fore wings until they appear 
to be a single branching vein (Fig. 552). 
The smoky-moths, Pyromorphidae, of which but fifteen species occur, 
in the United States, are small, expanding from f inch to 1 inch (a single 
Western species expands i| inches), and with blackish ground-color on body 
