476 FIFTH REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



While this worm is often found on apple and elm trees, the lime or 

 linden is its proper food-tree. The females are wingless and grub-like, 

 much larger than the female canker-worm moth, white, marked with 

 two dorsal rows of black patches; they lay their eggs in little clusters 

 in crevices in the trunk or in the branches, and in the spring when the 

 leaves begin to unfold they hatch. Their habits are similar to those of 

 the canker-worm, and the best means of protection against them are 

 those employed against the canker-worm, i. e., the use of tarred paper 

 daubed over with printer's ink or troughs of oil around the trunk of 

 trees to prevent the females from ascending the trees to lay their eggs. 



The male. — Pale ocherous, with light hrowu specks and hands. Head, hody, front 

 or costal edj^e of the forewiugs and transverse hand on the wings concolorous, being 

 pale hrown. Forewiugs with a faint, curved, sinuate, diffuse inner line ; outer line 

 dark hrown, slightly sinuate, with a large obtuse angle in the middle of the wing ; it 

 is shaded externally with a broad pale-brown band, which breaks up into flecks on 

 the outer edge ; a well-marked discal dot. Hind wings without any markings, some- 

 what paler than the fore pair. Expanse of wings 2 inches. 



4. Engonia alniaria (Linn.). 



The caterpillar is called the stick worm from its habit of holding itself 

 out erect like a piece of a twig, to which it bears a close resemblance. 

 It was observed on the linden by Dr. Harris in August and September. 

 When about to pupate it spins an oblong oval, tough but thin, paper- 

 like cocoon, open or loose at each end. The chrysalis is large, covered 

 with bloom. The moth appeared in confinement September 25 to 27. 

 (See Chestnut Insects, p. 344) 



5. Datana ministra (Drury). 



August 26 I found fourteen full-grown larvae on the bass-wood or 

 native linden, not differing from a colony of seventy-seven larvae found 

 on the apple August 22 at Salem, Mass., and described below. The 

 young as well as full-grown cluster thickly together, often raising the 

 head and tail in a ludicrous manner. 



Mrs. Anna K. Dimmock gives a summary of its history (Psyche iv, 

 279) as follows : 



Datana ministra Drury (Ilhist. Nat. Hist. 177:3, v. 2, p. 25, pi. 14, fig. 3). Harris 

 Rept. Ins. Injur. Veg.,1841, p. 311-312) describes the larva and imago, and this de- 

 scription is repeated, with the addition of a wood-cut of the larva and a colored figure 

 of the imago, in his Treatise on Ins. Injur. Veg., in 1862; he gives (Entom. Corresp., 

 1869, p. 308-310, pi. 2. fig. 4) a description with colored figure of the larva. Grote 

 and Robinson (Proc. Entom. Soc. Phil., 1866, v. 6, p. 11-12) describes the imago and 

 the larva with especial reference to distinguishing it from the larvae of other species 

 of Datana, Harris (/. c.) gave as food-plants of the larvae apple and cherry ; Riley 

 (Amer. Entom., July-August, 1870, v. 2, p. 263) adds Juglans nigra; and Southwick 

 and Beutenmiiller (Science Record, 15 April, 1884, v. 2, p. 133) in a list of the food- 

 plants of larv;c of species of i)a/a?i«, add, for D. ministra, Quercus, Corylus, Carya, 

 Crata'gus, Bobinia, Betula, Tilia, Castanea, and Fagits. The eggs of this species, which 

 are often found in groups beneath the leaves of Betula alba, are, at least in eastern 

 Massachusetts, very often nearly all destroyed by a minute hymenopterous parasite. 



