264 ^A" ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 



effective, especially if applied while the caterpillars are still quite 

 small. 



Arranged in the same family, Agaristidcc, are several similar 

 caterpillars, producing quite different moths, but amenable to the 

 same methods of treatment. One species, the larva of Psycho- 

 morpha epimenis, folds the edges of the leaves and lives \\\ the 

 little pocket so formed ; but they are usually so rare that they can 

 hardly be termed injurious. 



In that part of the Southern States where the "moon-vine," 

 Ipomcea, flourishes, it is often attacked and sometimes defoliated 

 by a yellow, hairy caterpillar, which appears in considerable 



Fig. 284. Fig. 285. 



-^ "^ ^ 



Psychoniorpha epimeiiis. — Male insect Euchrmnia ipomtFtr. 



and larva. 



numbers. When this is full g'rown it denudes itself of hair, and 

 with it and a few threads of silk forms a bright yellow cocoon, 

 from which issues in due time a wasp-like moth expanding 

 nearly an inch, with narrow, white-spotted black wings, and a 

 black, bright red or yellow banded abdomen. This is Eiuhro- 

 mia ipomcEcs, which flies rather heavily and clumsily during the 

 middle of the day in bright sunlight. As against this insect the 

 arsenites are indicated, or, where only a few plants are to be 

 protected, hand-picking may be resorted to. 



In vineyards there may be often seen feeding on the under 

 sides of the leaves little, black-spotted, yellow, sbmewhat hairy 

 larvce, less than half an inch in length, ranged side by side as 

 closely as possible, and retreating as they eat until a leaf is com- 

 pletely skeletonized. When this kind of larva is full grown it 

 spins a white, flattened cocoon, in which it changes to a pupa 

 and from which it emerges in due time as a little, narrow- 

 winged, black moth wearing a red collar. This is the Harrisina 



