THE TENT-CATERPILLAR. 



Malacosoma 



LASIOCAMPID^E 



If the Tent-caterpillar (Plate LVII) were 



not so common and such a pest we who are 

 amencana . 



interested in nature would be willing to go 



miles to see a colony. We might even bring eggs home so 

 that we could have it in our garden. In some books you 

 will find this species and disstria under Clisiocampa. 

 The adults, which are dull yellowish or reddish-brown, 

 appear in late June or early July. The female lays three 

 or four hundred eggs in a band which encircles a small 

 twig of some tree, preferably wild cherry or apple. This 

 band is rounded at the ends and covered with a water- 

 proof protective "varnish." The embryos develop before 

 winter but do not emerge until the next spring. Their 

 first act seems to be helping brothers and sisters spin a 

 temporary silken tent around what is left of the egg-mass. 

 If this is in a good place from which to go out for food, they 

 may make their permanent tent here but usually they 

 move, in several days, to a fairly large fork of the tree 

 and there construct the, to us, unsightly web. The 

 family sticks together until nearly full grown, resting in the 

 tent during storms and the heat of the day and coming 

 out to feed when it is cool but not too cold. On these 

 excursions they follow, to some extent, definite paths which 

 may be recognized by silken threads spun by the passing 

 larvae. They get wanderlust when full-grown. Perhaps 

 I object to them then more than ever, for they crawl over 

 everything. They are really hunting for a protected place 

 in which to spin tough, oval, white cocoons, which are held 

 in place by irregular threads. Considering that Nature 

 helps us by giving this species many enemies, that the larvae 

 gather in all too conspicuous webs where we may con- 

 veniently burn them, and that even the eggs may be easily 

 seen and removed during the winter, it is strange that 

 people allow M. americana to exist. The reason probably 

 is that its extermination requires community action. 

 Last winter I picked all the egg-masses off my trees ; in the 

 spring the editor of our country paper published a long 

 article telling how to combat the tent-caterpillar; he lives 

 across the street from me but he did nothing to the big 



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