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THE CANADIAN HORnCULTUFJST. 



porker, with its fat cheeks and small head, and heitce has sometimes been 



called the Hog Caterpillar 

 of the vine. It is well 

 represented in the accom- 

 panying figure 2. 



When full grown it is 

 about two inches in leno-th. 

 of a green color, dotted 

 with pale yellow dots or 

 granulations, with a row 

 down the middle of the 

 back of seven reddish or 

 lilac dots, varying in 

 intensity of color, and 

 surrounded by irregular 



Fig. 2. 



patches of yellowish. There is also a pale lateral line, bordered below 

 with a darker green, which extends from the head to the horn at the 

 tail; the yellow dots on the body are also so arranged as to form 

 -along each side a series of oblique lines or stripes extending backwards. 

 The horn is pale reddish, thickly covered with minute black points. 



This larva is very destructive to the foliage of the vine, its appetite 

 is so enormous that one or two of them, when nearly full grown, will 

 -strip a small vine of its foliage in two or three nights. On this account 

 they are easily discovered, and should be at once picked off the vines 

 -and destroyed. Sometimes when the foliage is dense they may be 

 more readily detected by their large dark-brown castings, which strew 

 the ground under their places of resort. 



Buf nature has provided a remedy, in a minute parasitic fly, which, 

 though small is an effectual check to the otherwise alarming increase 

 of this injurious insect. In figure 3 the larger drawing 

 is a magnified view of this fly, the smaller one showing 

 it of the natural size. This little friend punctures the 

 skin of the caterpillar, and deposits her eggs underneath, 

 where they soon hatch into young maggots, which 

 revel on the fatty portions of the body of their victim until they are 

 full grown. When the larva is nearly matured, and apparently in a 

 thriving condition, suddenly numerous little heads may be seen 

 forcing their way through the skin of the back and sides, and within 



Fig. 3. 



