WINTER MEETING. 321 



it is a grab or larva, may be recognized at a glance by the proportion- 

 ately enormous breadth of the joints just back of the head, which are 

 very much flattened and horny on top, and which taper very abruptly to 

 a thin-skinned and attenuated hind body. While in the tree it works- 

 under the bark, in the sap wood, as in the case of the round-headed 

 species, but it has a tendency to girdle the trunk instead of tunneling^ 

 back and forth in spots. Late in autumn it cuts a passage from the 

 bark into the heart-wood within which it excavates a cell for winter 

 habitation and for undergoing its transformations in the spring. The 

 perfect beetle comes out of the tree during the month of June. It i» 

 somewhat more than one-half inch in length, of flattened oval form* 

 with a very dense shell of a metallic greenish gray color above with 

 brassy spots, while underneath it appears sheathed in copper. The 

 antennte are short and serrated. This beetle and its numerous close 

 allies delight in the hottest sunshine and may be found at midday on 

 the south side of the trees laying their yellow eggs in cracks of the 

 bark. It is found not alone on the apple, but is almost equally des- 

 tructive to peach and several other varieties of fruit trees. Newly trans- 

 planted trees or those in which the vigor is somewhat impared, are 

 most subject to its attacks. Its presence is denoted late in summer by 

 exudation of sap, and it can be taken out with the knife. The same 

 applications recommended for the round-headed species will prove 

 the best possible preventatives for this one. Both these borers are 

 native Americans and bred naturally in the wild pip and stone fruits 

 of our forests. 



Among the one hundred or more of caterpillars that feed upon 

 the foliage of the apple tree the " canker worm " ( Anisopteryx vernata} 

 is by far the most general and the most destructive. This larva is a 

 '•measuring worm" or "looper," so called because, from the absence 

 of abdominal prolegs, it moves with a looping motion, placing the 

 hindmost legs close toward the head at every step. These worms 

 often appear in great numbers in orchards in the spring and devour 

 the tender leaves and gnaw the stems that support the young fruit. 

 They feed for Ave or six weeks, as they do not all hatch at once, by 

 which time badly infested orchards appear as though a fire had passed 

 through them. The worms then enter the ground to the depth of two 

 or three inches and, enclosing themselves in little oval cells formed of 

 silk and particles of earth, change to golden-brown chrysalids. In 

 this state they remain through the summer, autumn and winter. Very 

 early in spring — sometimes in February if the ground is open — the 

 moths begin to come out of the ground. The males have broad silky 

 H— 21 



