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Family Limnephilidae

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 comparatively 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.