LEPIDOPTERA. 313 



apple and cherry trees ; they were more hairy than the latter, 

 but their postures and habits appeared to be the same. Wheth- 

 er they were all different species, or only varieties of the minis- 

 tra, arising from difference of food, I have not been able to as- 

 certain. Mr. Abbot * found the caterpillars of the minislra on a 

 species of Andromeda. He says that they also eat the leaves of 

 several kinds of walnut and oak ; that those which eat walnut 

 leaves are always black, with white hairs ; and when their food is 

 of the oak that they are more yellow ; but that he had not ob- 

 served any material difference in the moths. 



The cultivation of the balsam and our other large-leaved native 

 poplars seems to have been neglected of late years. It is true 

 that these trees are not so durable and so valuable as many oth- 

 ers ; but we sometimes meet with noble specimens of them ; and 

 the rapidity of their growth, the great size they attain in favorable 

 situations, and the fine shade they afford, are qualities not to be 

 overlooked or despised ; nor is the wood entirely worthless, either 

 as fuel or in the arts. If these trees are planted alternately with 

 other more slow-growing trees, we shall have the benefit of the 

 shade and shelter of the former till the others have become large 

 enough to fill their places. They are not subject to be attacked 

 by canker-worms, oak-caterpillars, web-worms, and many other 

 kinds of insects that infest our hard-wood, ornamental, and shade 

 trees ; but, unfortunately, they suffer too often from insect depre- 

 dators of their own, such as the grubs of two or three kinds of 

 beetles, which bore into their trunks ; the spiny caterpillars of 

 the Antiopa butterfly and of the Io moth, the fork-tailed Cerura, 

 the caterpillar of the herald-moth, and another kind of caterpillar 

 now to be described, all which devour the leaves of these trees. 

 This last kind of caterpillar is found in little swarms on the trees 

 from the last of July to the beginning of October. It does not 

 raise the hinder part of its body when at rest. It is nearly cy- 

 lindrical, with two little black warts close together on the top of 

 the fourth and of the eleventh rings. There are a few short 

 whitish hairs thinly scattered over the body, which is pale yellow, 

 with three slender black lines on the back, and a broad dusky 



* See " Insects of Georgia," p. 161, pi. 81. 

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