144 



FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF 



of barbs at the extremit}-. The moth is of a dull orange color, with the 

 front wings variegated Avith dusky, and spotted Avith black, and the hind 

 wings somewhat lighter and also with black spots. 



Mr. Huron Burt, of Williamsburg, informs me that this caterj^illar is 

 also called "Fever-worm" in his neighborhood. As the miasma of the 

 Southern swamps induces ague, and as the large black species is found abun- 

 dantly in such situations, the two circumstances have doubtless been asso- 

 ciated through ignorance ; and some Ethiopean, right from Dixie, has per- 

 hajDS i^erpetuated the name in Missouri, by applying it to our more nor- 

 thern Hedge-hog Caterpillar. 



Neither of these insects are, so far as known, attacked b}' any parasite, 

 though a peculiar fungus-disease, probably identical with Muscardine in the 

 Silkworm, (see p. 88) often causes the larvae to die. AVorms attacked with 

 this disease fasten themselves firmly to some stem, and, stretched out nat- 

 urally, death would scarcely be suspected were it not for a certain rigidity, 

 and a mildew-like powder covering the skin. 



THE ACOEN MOTH— Ho/corem ylandulella, Riley.. 



^ ( Leiiidoptera, Tiuei(l;e. ) 



The mast which is so valua- 

 ble to the swine breeder in the 

 oak-land sections of the State, is 

 often very seriously affected and 

 greatly diminished in quantity by 

 the workings of the larvfi or 

 •• grub " of a species of long-snouted 

 nut-weevil (Balatiinus rectus, Sa}'.) 

 The female, with her long bill, 

 pierces a hole in the young acorn, and deposits therein an egg which gives 

 birth to a legless, arched grub with a brown head. This grub devours dur- 

 ing the summer, the contents of the acorn, and in the autumn drops, with 

 the rifled fruit, to the ground, where it soon gnaws its way out through a 

 circular hole and buries itself for the winter. It becomes a pupa in the 

 spring, and eventually issues as a beetle. 



After the original depredator has vacated its tenement, a little guest- 

 moth comes along and drops an egg into the already ruined acorn. The 

 worm hatching from this egg grows fat upon the crumbs left by the former 

 occupant, rioting amid the refuse (Fig. 66, a) and securing itself against in- 

 truders by closing with a strong covering of silk, the hole which its j^rede- 

 cessor had made in egi-ess (Pig. 66, h). In the winter time, or in spring, or 

 early summer, the farmer who notices three-fourths of the acorns under his 

 trees infested, as they have been for the past two j^ears, l>y this worm ; i.** 

 very aj^t to consider it the true culprit, whereas it is rarelj', if ever, found 

 in acorns that have not first been ruined by the Aveevil above mentioned or 

 injured by some other insect, or in some other way. 



