VAPORER MOTH BEAUTY OF THE CATERPILLAR. 209 



the limbs, moreover, are so much more slender, long and straight 

 than those of the apple tree, that the eye detects the belt of 

 eggs upon them far more readily than upon the latter tree. 

 Hence a hundred clusters of eggs or a hundred caterpillars' 

 nests upon a half dozen cherry trees on the outer edge of the 

 orchard can be exterminated much more easily than half that 

 number upon forty or fifty apple trees within the orchard. And 

 the work when brought within so small a compass can be much 

 more completely accomplished, leaving nothing to produce a 

 crop of these vermin another year, except what straggles in 

 from the surrounding premises of shiftless neighbors. Every 

 reader will perceive the plausibility of the measure now sug- 

 gested- but it is only after testing it by carrying it into practice, 

 that we can know with certainty whether it will fulfill our 

 expectations. 



Eating the leaves, in July; a slender caterpillar with pale yellow hairs 

 and tufts and hlack pencils, its head and two small protuberances on 

 the hind part of the back bright coral red. 



In winter, clusters of white eggs and a dead leaf adhering to a whitish 

 cocoon attached to the twigs or limbs. 



The American Vaporer moth, Orgyia leucostigma, Abbot and Smith. 



The term "caterpillar" is applied to a worm which is clothed 

 with hairs; and we commonly associate this term with something 

 which is ugly and repulsive in its appearance. But many cater- 

 pillars are far from meriting this prejudice, being in reality ob- 

 jects of much beauty. This is eminently the case with one 

 which may frequently be seen in the month of July upon apple 

 trees, and also in our yards upon rose bushes. We cultivate the 

 rose for ornament; and nature, as if to further our designs, places 

 upon the leaves this neat prim little caterpillar, which is a more 

 delicate, elegant object than the handsomest rose that ever grew. 

 I well remember the first time I noticed one of these caterpillars. 

 It was in the hay-field, in my boyhood. One of the laborers, 

 who had little taste for any of the beauties of nature — a man of 

 that class of whom the poet sings, 



" The primrose growing by the river's brim 



Is but 'A yellow primrose' — nothing more — to him" — 



in stooping for a handful of grass to wipe off his scythe, had his 

 attention arrested by one of these caterpillars. Taking up the 

 [Assembly, 215.] 14 



