84 EBERHARTS OUTLINES OF 



" The caterpillars are very destructive to the foliage of 

 the vine, being capable of consuming an enormous quan- 

 tity of food ; one or two of them, when nearly full grown, 

 will almost strip a small vine of its foliage in the course of 

 two or three days. In some districts they are said to nip 

 off the stalks of the half grown clusters of grapes so that 

 they fall unripe to the ground. 



Remedies. "The readiest and most effectual method 

 of disposing of these pests is to pick them off the vines and 

 kill them. They are easily found by the denuded canes 

 which mark their course, or where the foliage is dense they 

 may be tracked by their large brown castings, which strew 

 the ground under their places of resort. Nature has pro- 

 vided a very efficient check to their undue increase, in a 

 small parasitic fly, a species of Ichneumon, the female of 

 which punctures the skin of the caterpillar and deposits 

 her eggs underneath, where they soon hatch into young 

 larvae, which feed upon the fatty portions of their victim, 

 avoiding the vital organs. By the time the Sphinx Cater- 

 pillar has become full grown, these parasitic larvae have ma- 

 tured, and eating their way through the skin of their host, 

 they construct their tiny snow white cocoons on its body, 

 from which, in about a week, the friendly fly escapes by 

 pushing open a nicely fitting lid at one end of its structure. 

 No larvae thus infested ever reaches maturity; it invariably 

 shrivels up and dies. 



THE AMERICAN PROCRIS. 



(Procris Americana. Harris.) 



Most of the insects hibernate in the pupa state; a few 

 as imagos. 



Those that winter as pupae emerge during June and 



