312 Fiftieth Report on the State Museum 



Mr, Preston refers to the observed habit of the caterpillar, which has 

 been frequently noticed elsewhere, of dropping from the leaves when 

 they have been nearly all consumed, and hanging by a thread until car- 

 ried by the wind to some neighboring tree, or else dropping to the 

 ground. 



To the orchardists of Amenia the canker worm is popularly known as 

 the " fire worm," from the appearance of the leaves after all their green 

 has been eaten away, as if they had been swept over by fire. 



The canker worm has also been reported from Moreton Farm, Monroe 

 county, and from orchards in Wayne county, as quite common, and from 

 several localities in Western New York. The seasonal conditions have 

 apparently been favorable for its multiplication. 



Caccecia rosaceana (Harris). 



Cacircia rosaceana (Harris), known as " the oblique-banded leaf-roller," 

 which feeds on an unusually large number of food-plants, has been quite 

 abundant and destructive in apple orchards. It has been sent to me 

 from several localities in Eastern and Central New York, as having been 

 very injurious not only to the foliage and the blossoms but later in the 

 season to the young fruit into which it ate rounded holes averaging one- 

 third of an inch on the outside and larger within, and often extending to 

 beyond their center. They attacked the fruit as soon as it had set, and 

 continued until it had attained nearly an inch in diameter. The injury 

 had been quite serious in the orchard of Mr. Morris Tompkins, ofGer- 

 mantown, Columbia county. The moths were known to him from having 

 reared them from the caterpillars, and on June 13th, such numbers were 

 drawn to light at night that apprehension was felt of the work of a 

 second brood. Walsh and Riley have recorded as a habit of the cater- 

 pillar its gnawing off the rind of green apples, but I do not recall 

 mention of its destroying the fruit by eating large holes into the interior. 



Another caterpillar of larger size — of about an inch in length of a pale 

 green color and marked with white hues and dots — is also chargeable 

 with eating into the fruit, after the manner of the Cacoecia. I failed to 

 rear the examples that were sent me, but it is not improbable that it may 

 h& N'oioJ)ha?ia malana [Y\ic\\). It appears that C A<;i-«r<?a;^rt; may be in 

 part, controlled by jarring. State Botanist Peck brought on the i8th of 

 May, several of the larvae which he had taken from his plum trees 

 i ] jarring for the plum curculio. From one small tree, twenty larvae 

 fell upon the sheet underneath. 



