124 FIFTH REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 



168. The orange-striped oak-worm.* 



Anisota senatoria Hiibuer. 



Order Lepidoptera; family BoMbYCiD^. 



In August, sometimes stripping the trees, a spiny black caterpillar, with four orange- 

 yellow stripes on the back and two along each side, with two black prickles above 

 and two on each side, changing the following June to a large ocher-yellow moth, 

 with a large white dot on the fore wings. 



These prickly caterpillars, during certain years, as I have noticed at 

 Amherst, Mass., and at Providence, as well as in Maine, so abound as 

 to nearly strip large oak branches of their leaves, and is perhaps the 

 most destructive of all our caterpillars to the foliage of the oak. The 

 spines, if they happen to penetrate the skin, as Fitch and others have 

 observed, sting like nettles. This species, Mr. Riley informs me, is the 

 more injurious in the Northern States, while A. stigma is most destruct- 

 ive in the Southern. According to Riley, Mr. Bassett has bred a small 

 ichneumon fly {Limneria [Banchus] fugitiva Say) from this caterpillar. 

 Riley has also bred it from the larva of Anisota stigma^ Olisiocampa 

 sylvatica, as well as other caterpillars. 



Mr. Lintner states that " the larvte occur so abundantly at Center as 

 wholly to defoliate numbers of the smaller oaks. On the 7th of July 

 the female moths were seen to have commenced the deposition of their 

 eggs on the under side of oak leaves in patches often nearly covering 

 the entire surface. On the 11th of July some newly hatched larvae 

 were observed." (Ent. Contr., i, 58, foot-note 1.) 



In 1882 this caterpillar was very destructive to oak forests in Penn- 

 sylvania. Professor Olaypole writes to the Canadian Entomologist 

 (XV, 38) : 



I have seen hillsides that looked as if fii'e had passed over them in consequence of 

 the destruction of the foliage by millions of this species. In the woods they could be 

 found crawling over almost every s(xuare foot of ground and lying dead by dozens 

 in every pool of water. The sound of their falling " frass," too, was like a slight 

 shower of rain. Farmers tell me they have never known them to be so abundant before 

 within their recollection. Harris says this species lives ou the white and red oaks in 



* Anisota senatoria Abb. «& Smith (Nat. Hist. Lepid. Ins. Ga., 1797, v. 2, p. 113, pi. 

 57). Harris (Rept. Ins. Injur. Veg., 1841, p. 291-292) describes the larva, pupa, and 

 imago of this species ; the larva, he states, feeds upon white and red oaks [ Quercus 

 sp.]. Morris (Synop. Lepid. N. A., 1862, p. 231) describes the larva and imago. Har- 

 ris (Treatise on Ins. Injur. Veg., 1862, p. 405-406) figures and describes larva, pupa, and 

 imago, and (Entom. Corresp., 1869, p. 298, pi. 2, fig. 9, and pi. 4, fig. 12) gives a col- 

 ored figure of the larva and a black one of the pupa. Riley [?] (Araer. Entom., Sept.- 

 Oct., 1869, V. 2, p. 26) states that the larva eats raspberry \^Ruhu8 sp.] Lintner 

 (Entom. Contrib., No. 2, 1872, p. 51-52) describes the early stages of the larva, which, 

 he writes, has four molts (five stages), and feeds on Quercus prinoides. Packard 

 (Bull. 7, U. S. Entom. Comm., 1881, p. 45) briefly describes the larva, and gives a few 

 notes upon its habits. The larva feeds ou Betula alba. (Mrs. Dimmock, Psyche, 

 iv, 275.) 



