LEPIDOPTERA. 365 



jecting ledge is nailed on the edge of the box to shed the rain; 

 by this contrivance, all danger of hurting the tree with the oil 

 is entirely avoided. In the " Mancliester Guardian," an Eng- 

 lish newspaper, of the fourth of November, 1840, is the follow- 

 ing article on the use of melted Indian rubber to prevent 

 insects from climbing up trees. " At a late meeting of the 

 Entomological Society, [of London ?] Mr. J. H. Fennell com- 

 municated the following successful mode of preventing insects 

 ascending the trunks of fruit-trees. Let a piece of Indian 

 tbber be burnt over a gallipot, into which it will gradually 

 drop in the condition of a viscid juice, which state, it appears, 

 it will always retain ; for Mr. Fennell has, at the j^resent time, 

 some which has been melted for upwards of a year, and has 

 been exposed to all weathers without undergoing the slightest 

 change. Having melted the Indian rubber, let a piece of cord 

 or worsted be smeared with it, and then tied several times 

 round the trunk. The melted substance is so very sticky, that 

 the insects will be prevented, and generally captured, in their 

 attempts to pass over it. About three pennyworth of Indian 

 rubber is sufficient for the protection of twenty ordinary sized 

 fruit-trees." Applied in this way it w^ould not be sufficient to 

 keep the canker-worm moths from getting up the trees; for 

 the first comers would soon bridge over the cord with their 

 bodies, and thus afford a passage to their followers. To in- 

 sure success, it should be melted in larger quantities, and 

 daubed with a brush upon strips of cloth or paper, fastened 

 round the trunks of the trees. Worn out Indian rubber shoes, 

 which are worth little or nothing for any other purpose, can 

 be put to this use. This plan has been tried by a few persons 

 in the vicinity of Boston, some of whom speak favorably of it. 

 It has been suggested that the melted rubber might be applied 

 immediately to the bark without injuring the trees. A little 

 conical mound of sand surrounding the base of the tree is 

 found to be impassable to the moths, so long as the sand re- 

 mains dry ; but they easily pass over it when the sand is wet, 

 and they come out of the ground in wet, as often as in dry 

 weather. 



Some attempts have been made to destroy the canker-worms 



