LARCH CHEATER — ITS DECEPTIVE APPEARANCE. 2G3 



•other discolorations which will be seen upon the bark around 

 it , Even upon the closest scrutiny the eye fails to detect any- 

 thing by which we can be assured this slight elevation is not a 

 tumor which has grown in the bark. A lady to whom I once 

 pointed out one of these caterpillars, I could perceive distrusted 

 my statement and supposed I was imposing upon her credulity, 

 the slight inequality at the point indicated being so exactly like 

 a natural tumor upon the bark and so totally unlike a living 

 worm. But a mite, wandering over the limb, on coming to this 

 elevated spot sought to crawl under it, whereupon it gave a con- 

 vulsive shrug to frighten the intruder away, by which the lady's 

 skepticism was dispelled. The cocoons which they construct 

 upon the limbs are equally exact counterfeits of the bush. One 

 of these upon a limb of the wil'd black cherry is now in the mu- 

 seum of the State Agricultural Society. It is placed longitudi- 

 nally in the slight angle formed exteriorly where one limb 

 branches from another, and a piece of putty could not be more 

 perfectly moulded into this angle and smoothed off so as to leave 

 no inequality. The bark of the cherry is blackish with trans- 

 verse whitish streaks, and this cocoon presents the same colors 

 and of tints almost the same, and what is most remarkable, it 

 in one place shows a whitish streak continued from the bark 

 upon the surface of the cocoon. And finally, in their perfect 

 state, the moths imitate appearances which are common upon the 

 particular trees on which they dwell; those upon deciduous 

 trees, in the colors and scalloped margins of their wings resem- 

 bling a tuft of withered leaves; those upon evergreens resem- 

 bling a scar where the turpentine has exuded and concreted into 

 a whitish mass. 



Two American species of these curious insects are already 

 known, both of them occurring in our State, upon the apple and 

 other deciduous trees. To these we now add a third species, 

 which resides upon the tamarack or American larch, Abies (La- 

 rix) Americana. It appears to be a rare insect. A specimen was 

 presented to me by Dr. Emmons, in 1847, captured in the neigh- 

 borhood of Albany that year by Mr. J. H. Salisbury, the chem- 

 ist. The only other instance in which I have met with it, was 

 upon a drooping larch in my front yard, in the year 1854. Upon 



