252 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



exterminating these destructive insects. By the practice of late 

 mowing, where the caterpillars abound, a great loss in the crop 

 will be sustained, immense numbers of caterpillars and grasshop- 

 pers will be left to grow to maturity and disperse upon the up- 

 lands, by which means the evil will go on increasing from year to 

 year ; or they will be brought in with the hay to perish in our 

 barns and stacks, where their dead bodies will prove offensive to 

 the cattle, and occasion a waste of fodder. To get rid of "the 

 old fog" or stubble, which becomes much thicker and longer in 

 consequence of early mowing, the marshes should be burnt over 

 in March. The roots of the grass will not be injured by burning 

 the stubble, on the contrary they will be fertilized by the ashes ; 

 while great numbers of young grasshoppers, cocoons of cater- 

 pillars, and various kinds of destructive insects, with their eggs, 

 concealed in the stubble, will be destroyed by the fire. In the 

 Province of New Brunswick, the benefit arising from burning the 

 stubble has long been proved ; and this practice is getting into 

 favor here. 



During the autumn, there may be seen in our gardens and fields, 

 and even by the way-side, a kind of caterpillar whose peculiar ap- 

 pearance must frequently have excited attention. It is very 

 thickly clothed with hairs, which are stiff, short, and perfectly 

 even at the ends, like the bristles of a brush, as if they had all 

 been shorn off with shears to the same length. The hairs on the 

 first four and last two rings are black ; and those on the six inter- 

 mediate rings of the body are tan-red. The head and body of the 

 caterpillar are also black. When one of these insects is taken up, 

 it immediately rolls itself into a ball, like a hedge-hog, and, owing 

 to its form, and to the elasticity of the diverging hairs with which 

 it is covered, it readily slides from the fingers and hand of its 

 captor. It eats the leaves of clover, dandelion, narrow-leaved 

 plantain, and of various other herbaceous plants, and, on the ap- 

 proach of winter, creeps under stones, rails, or boards on the 

 ground, where it remains in a half torpid state till spring. In 

 April or May it makes an oval blackish cocoon, composed chiefly 

 of the hairs of its body, and comes forth in the moth state in June 

 or July. My specimens remained in the chrysalis form five 



