APPLE-TREE CATERPILLAR — LEAVES WHICH IT EATS. 183 



as well as deciduous. But our American caterpillar is unable, 

 I think, to subsist upon any trees of the evergreen class. A nest 

 of the young worms, on being attached to the limb of a pine 

 tree all died of starvation. A nest of half grown ones, tied 

 among the foliage of a tamerack or larch all forsook the tree in 

 the course of two or three days, without eating any of the leaves 

 that I could discover. Another nest of half grown worms 

 having consumed all the foliage of the bush on which they were 

 hatched, and being obliged to migrate elsewhere, came first to a 

 spruce tree, but passed on without ascending it, as though aware 

 it was unsuitable for their nourishment. And in those rare in- 

 stances in which single full grown caterpillars may be met with 

 upon the hemlock and pine, they have probably ascended these 

 trees in search of a secure place for spinning their cocoons, and 

 not to feed upon the leaves. 



Nor is our caterpillar by any means a general feeder upon de- 

 ciduous trees. The experiments and observations which I have 

 made, to ascertain upon what kinds of foliage it is able to sus- 

 tain itself may here be briefly recited. It is well known that it 

 decidedly prefers the wild or native black cherry to any other 

 tree, and next to this it is most fond of the apple, although it is 

 about equally fond of the choke cherry and of the cultivated 

 garden cherry. Its nests may also be occasionally met with upon 

 the bird or small red cherry, upon the wild plum and upon dif- 

 ferent species of the thorn (Crataegus), and I doubt not the cat- 

 erpillar will thrive and grow to maturity upon almost any oi 

 the trees and shrubs which pertain to the natural order Rosacea 

 as I have repeatedly noticed it feeding upon the leaves of the 

 shad bush (.dmelanchier), the rose, &c. Some of the trees of this 

 group, however, are unadapted to it; the peach, for instance. 

 On the tenth of June, when the caterpillars had mostly attained 

 their full size, a nest was noticed upon a peach tree, below the 

 belt of eggs from which it had hatched. But all the worms in 

 this nest, were at that late date quite small, being only about a 

 third grown. So far as a single observation can be relied upon, 

 it appeared that this tree was unadapted to these caterpillars, 

 and that the parent insect had erred in placing her eggs upon it, 

 probably having mistaken it for a species of cherry. 



