Winter Meeting. 281 



which has a decidedly yellowish color, due to a substance which the in- 

 sect places with the silk, which soon . forms a yellowish powder. Inside 

 of this cocoon, which the larva spins, it transforms to a pupa, and re- 

 mains there until the following July, when the adult emerges. A cocoon 

 is represented natural size in Fig. 3 d. 



These insects are easily combated, because they gather in a mass 

 inside of a conspicuous web in order to pass rainy days and each night, 

 so that it becomes an easy matter to pass through the orchard and de- 

 tect these insects very early in their larval condition. A little later, of 

 course, one notices the defoliated portions of the trees and the webs be- 

 come very conspicuous. 



If one is spraying the orchard for the codling moth and other biting 

 insects, these apple-tree tent-caterpillar larvae will be readily killed by 

 the arsenical poison put upon the leaves for the other insects, but in case 

 one is not spraying the orchard regularly for other biting insects, the 

 simplest method by which you can fight the apple-tree tent-caterpillar is 

 to drive a couple of nails in the end of a long stick, or cut a long stick with 

 a fork in the end, and push this forked end into the midst of the web, 

 and Ijy turning it, wind the nest, larvae and all together, and pull it out 

 of the tree and step upon it. If this be done early in the morning or 

 late in the evening, when the larvae are all collected together, one can, 

 in a very short time, pass through several hundred trees and destroy the 

 nests of all of these insects. 



TfiE WHITE-MARKED TUSSOCK-MOTH {Ovgyia leiicostignia.) 



This Tussock-moth is gaining ground very rapidly -in IMissouri. 

 Until comparatively recently the insect was scarcely known in this State. 

 It feeds upon apple, plum, pear and such shade and forest trees as elm, 

 maple, oak and horse-chestnut. The insect does injury by defoliating, and 

 as there are two broods each year, with three hundred to five hundred 

 per cent, increase, the damage that these insects may cause in an in- 

 fested locality is great. 



The adults differ wonderfully in appearance, the males being winged 

 and capable of flight, measuring about one and three-fourths inches 

 across their expanded wings, which are ash-gray in color, with dark wavy 

 bands and some dark spots on the front wings. A picture, natural size, 

 of the male is showm in Fig. 4 e. The female moths have no wings 

 whatever. They are oblong in .shape and of a light-gray color, with 

 rather long legs, and they never travel far from the cocoons, out of which 

 they emerge. The females remind one very much of the females of the 

 well-known canker worm, except that the female Tussock-moth is some- 



