14 WHITE-MAKKED TUSSOCK-MOTH. 



almost every instance in which I hare received specimens, com- 

 plaint has been made of their gnawing the young apples, and 

 examples of the fruit thiis corroded have generally been sent in 

 the packages with the caterpillars. The etiect is either to destroy 

 the fruit, or, where the corrosion is less in extent, to induce a de- 

 formity in its future growth. This kind of injury can only be 

 done by the first or spring brood of caterpillars. The later brood 

 will sometimes strip the tree of its foliage after the apples are 

 nearly grown, and I have this year seen the curious spectacle of 

 an orchard loaded with apples with scarcely a leaf to be seen upon 

 any of the trees. The only injurious efiect in this case seemed to 

 be the diminishing somewhat the size of the fruit. 



This is one of our most widely distributed insects, having been 

 noticed in most of the States east of the Mississippi Kiver. The 

 female is wingless, and it could have obtained this wide geographic 

 range only by being transported upon nursery trees from one lo- 

 cality to another. This is sufficiently explained by the fact that 

 the female moth lays her eggs upon her cocoon, which is attached, 

 sometimes to fences or other objects, but usually to the twigs of 

 the tree upon which she has fed. If left to themselves, therefore, 

 these insects would migrate very slowly, and in point of fact, are 

 remarkable for committing their ravages within very hmited 

 ranges. For this reason they have never been regarded as nox- 

 ious insects of a very serious character. 



The Tussock-moth caterpillars are solitary in their habits ; that 

 is, they do not live together in families like the Tent-caterpillar 

 and many others. This would render them very difficult to eradi- 

 cate, were not their distribution limited by the wingless and sta- 

 tionary character of the female moths. They do not cover them- 

 selves with a web, but they have the power of letting themselves 

 down from the tree by a thread, when disturbed. 



These insects are remarkable for the great variety of foliage 

 upon which they can subsist. Though they seem to prefer the 

 apple, yet they feed freely upon the oak, maple, elm, plum, pear, 

 horse-chestnut, black- walnut, larch, and rose-bush. 



They pass the winter in the egg state, attached for the most 

 part to the twigs and branches of trees, and as the egg masses are 

 fastened to the outside of the cocoon from which the female has 

 emerged, they form very conspicuous objects upon the leafless 



