365 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO VEGETATION. 



more dusky, and the feelers are gray instead of being white. 

 Specimens, of a rather smaller size, are sometimes found, re- 

 sembling the figure and description given by Professor Peck, 

 in which the whitish bands and spot are wanting, and there 

 are three interrupted dusky lines across the fore wings, with 

 an oblique blackish dash near the tip. Perhaps they constitute 

 a different species from that of the true canker-worm moth. 

 Should this be the case, the latter may be called Anisopteryx 

 pometaria, or the Anisopteryx of the orchard, while the former 

 should retain the name originally given to it by Professor 

 Peck. The female is wingless, and its antennae are short, 

 slender, and naked. Its body approaches to an oval form, but 

 tapers and is turned up behind. It is dark ash -colored above, 

 and gray beneath. 



It was formerly supposed that the canker-worm moths came 

 out of the ground only in the spring. It is now known that 

 many of them rise in the autumn and in the early part of the 

 winter. In mild and open winters I have seen them in every 

 month from October to March. They begin to make their 

 appearance after the first hard frosts in the autumn, usually 

 towards the end of October, and they continue to come forth, 

 in greater or smaller numbers, according to the mildness or 

 severity of the weather after the frosts have begun. Their 

 general time of rising is in the spring, beginning about the 

 middle of March, but sometimes before, and sometimes after 

 this time ; and they continue to come forth for the space of 

 abou.t three weeks. It has been observed that there are more 

 females than males among those that appear in the autumn 

 and winter, and that the males are most abundant in the 

 spring. The sluggish females instinctively make their way 

 towards the nearest trees, and creep slowly up their trunks. 

 In a few days afterwards they are followed by the winged and 

 active males, which flutter about and accompany them in their 

 ascent, during which the insects pair. Soon after this, the 

 females lay their eggs upon the branches of the trees, placing 

 them on their ends, close together in rows, forming clusters of 

 from sixty to one hundred eggs or more, which is the number 

 usually laid by each female. The eggs are glued to each 



