YELLOW-NECKED APPLE-TREE WORM. 235 



necessary, it is probable that the same remedial measures to 

 which allusion has been made under the palmer worm, will be 

 of equal efficacy here. But commonly the numbers of these in- 

 sects are so limited that they are unable to do any amount of 

 injury which requires attention. 



Cylindrical dull yellow worms, with light yellow stripes and black heads, 

 when large becoming black with light yellow stripes and a yellow 

 neck; when alarmed holding both ends of their bodies stiffly upward; 

 clustered closely together and wholly stripping the leaves from one 

 particular limb, in August. 



The Yellow-necked apple-teee worm, or the Handmaid Moth, Eu- 

 metopona ministra, Drury. (Plate 4, fig. 3.) 



There is probably no other insect invading our apple trees which 

 excites more notice and alarm than does this. As it lives toge- 

 ther in families, and commencing at the end of a limb, strips it 

 perfectly clean of its leaves, the proprietors of orchards are ap- 

 prehensive when it makes its appearance that it will continue 

 and multiply until it utterly devastates their trees; and persons 

 have repeatedly brought this worm to me, sometimes coming sev- 

 eral miles to enquire its name and whether it is usual for it to 

 remain where it has once made a lodgement. The insect, how- 

 ever, is not very common. Some years a few clusters of these 

 worms will be found scattered upon different trees and then 

 several years will commonly elapse before it is again seen. As 

 these pages are passing through the press it is far more common 

 in the vicinity of my residence than I have ever seen it before. 

 In 1853 it was also to be met with in almost every orchard. And 

 except in these years I have very seldom seen it. 



The nakedness of the limb on which these insects are located 

 attracts attention to it, and on coming to look for the cause of 

 this nakedness, a whole family of plump glossy dull yellow or 

 large black worms is found upon one of the branches next below 

 those which have been devastated. If engaged in feeding they 

 are huddled together upon the under surfaces of the leaves, a 

 row of shining black heads, like a string of large beads, appear- 

 ing along the sides of the leaf, each mouth busily engaged in 



