200 Forty-second Report on the State Museum. [58] 



bers. Dryocampa rubicunda (Fabr.), often cited as Anisota, altliougb 

 having some other food-plants, is usually found on the maples {Acer 

 dasycarpum and A. saccharinmn), which it occasionally despoils of 

 nearly all their foliage, particularly in some of the western States. It 

 will, however, in confinement feed on oak leaves. 



Remedies. 



It will not often be necessary to resort to means for protection from 

 the injuries of this insect, as the oaks that they feed upon in prefer- 

 ence, and on which they occur in the largest numbers, are those that 

 ordinarily occupy sandy tracts (as at Karner, N. Y.) or other unpro- 

 ductive places. When, however, their attack is made upon oaks that 

 are valued for ornament or shade, it may be arrested by spraying the 

 foliage with London purj)le in water. 



Mr. Clarkson believes that its multiplication may be restrained by 

 destroying the moths on their first appearance while among the grass 

 beneath the oaks where their larvie abounded the preceding yeai', and 

 by trimming off the lower branches of the trees so that the foliage can 

 not be easily reached by the heavy-bodied females, for oviposition. 



Another remedy that has been recommended, for a similar larval 

 attack, is to dig a trench, around an infested tree, of about a foot in 

 depth, with its outer wall sloping inward, into which the caterpillars 

 as they leave the tree for pupation will collect, and where they can be 

 conveniently destroyed by crushing or by SiH'inkling with kerosene. 

 A trench with the two walls sloping upward toward one another would 

 be a still more effectual trap. 



Agrotis saucia (Hiibner). 



Larva: The Variegated Gut-worm. Moth: Tlie Unarmed Rustic. 



(Ord. Lepidoptera: Fam. Noctuid^.) 



Hubner: Samml. Europ. Schmett., 1796, 378 (Nocttia); Verzeich. Bek. 



Schmett., 1816, 227 {Peridroma). 

 Treitschke: Schmett. Eur., v., 1825, p. 149 (Agrotis). 

 Harris: Ins. New Engl., 1852, p. 344 (moth described); Ins. Inj. Veg., 



1862, p. 444 (A. inermis). 

 Guen]6e: Spec. Gen. Lep.— Noct., i, 1852, p. 271 (remarks on larva). 

 Stainton : Man. Brit. Moths, i, 1857, p. 224 (brief descriptions of moth and 



larva). 

 Boisduval: in Ann. Soc. Ent. France, ser. 3, vii, 1859, Bull., p. 102 (ravages 



in tobacco plantations in Algiers). 

 Riley: 1st Ann. Rept. Ins. Mo., 1869, pp. 72-74, pi. 1, figs. 1-4 (descriptions 



and life-history, as A. inermis); 3d id., 1871, p. 129 (parasite from); 



in Rept. Comm. Agricul. for 1884, p. 297-8, pi. 3, flgs. 1, 2 (notes on 



eggs and larva). 



