208 NEBRASKA STATE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



the caterpillar increases in size. By latter August the caterpillars are 

 fully grown, when they become restless and wander to other trees and 

 shrubs, finally attaching the bag by silken strands to a twig and within 

 it transforming to the chrysalis stage. About three weeks later the adult 

 moths are formed, and while the winged males emerge from the bag and 

 fly about, the wingless grublike females half fill the empty chrysalis skin 

 with eggs, sometimes several hundred or more of them, and then force 

 their way out of the bag, fall to the ground and die. These eggs survive 

 the winter in the bag and hatch out the following spring, as described. 



"The bagworm is a southern insect which is extending its range north- 

 ward and westward up the Missouri valley. It was found abundantly in 

 various localities in the vicinity of Rulo during the present winter, prin- 

 cipally in the river bottom among the willows and in the boxelders and 

 cedars in the town. One farmer near Falls City, who has a grove of about 

 two hundred cedars and pines from eighteen to twenty-five feet high, had 

 them extensively injured and destroyed by this pest last summer. Appar- 

 ently the insect has been established in Richardson county for several 

 years. 



"The first indication of its presence in the city of Lincoln was the 

 finding of a female cocoon on a boxelder tree at the corner of Twenty- 

 second and N streets two years ago this month. The following August a 

 second specimen was found, this time a female larva on the ground at 

 Thirty-third and Starr streets. No more were discovered until last Au- 

 gust, when a female was found on a sycamore near Thirty-third and Dud- 

 ley streets, but since then, and all through the present winter numerous 

 specimens have been found, indicating that the insect last season gained 

 a quite general distribution in East Lincoln. Up to date a total of eighty- 

 two bagworms or bags have been found within the city limits, at the 

 following locations: Twenty-second and N, Twenty-second and O, 

 Twenty-fifth and O, Seventeenth and P, Eleventh and Q, Twenty-first and 

 Q, Twenty-first and R, Fourteenth and S, Twenty-seventh and S, Tenth 

 and T, Thirteenth and T, Thirteenth and U, Fourteenth and Vine, Twenty- 

 seventh and Vine, Thirtieth and Vine, Twenty-fourth and Y, Twenty-ninth 

 and Y, Thirty-third and Dudley, and Thirty-third and Starr. 



"This pest is subject to fluctuations in abundance from year to year, 

 according to the efficiency of its parasites in controlling it during each 

 particular season, but at irregular intervals it breaks out and causes much 

 injury to the shade and ornamental trees of the streets and parks of the 

 infested cities. Five years ago there was such an outbreak in Washing- 

 ton, Baltimore, Harrisburg, St. Louis and other cites in New Jersey, Penn- 

 sylvania, Maryland, the Virginias, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois. 



"This insect is just getting established in Lincoln. All of the bags 

 found seem to be fresh and apparently not parasitized, so that it seems 

 likely that the insect will further intrench itself during the coming sum- 

 mer. If every person who sees one or several of these bags hanging in 

 the trees of his premises or elsewhere would see to it that they are picked 

 and destroyed before spring, the pest could be prevented from gaining a 



