PROCEEDINGS OF THE FARMERS' CLUB. 313 



son for the coming leaves, and ready to pursue the round of meta- 

 morphoses which their lot has made for them. 



It may be seen from this plan that by preventing the female 

 from crawling up the trunk of the tree, the tree thus guarded is 

 preserved from the worm, and by faithfully carrying out this 

 watch the race might be entirely killed oif. For this end the 

 bark of the trunk is smeared with liquid tar or surrounded by 

 troughs of lead filled with oil, or with a liquid called a "patent 

 article," used also to fill gas metres to keep them fi-ora freezing 

 up in winter, which is simply sea water, from which the common 

 salt has been removed by evaporation. This liquid freezes with 

 dilHculty and scarcely evaporates in the open air, and thus serves 

 either as a barrier, or to drown the grub if she persists in follow- 

 ing out her destiny. 



The measure worm differs from the canker worm in one very 

 important particular. The male and the female of the former, 

 in the second transformation, are both winged, both fly to the 

 spot where the eggs are to be deposited, and thus the laborious 

 tarring and the expensive girdling of trees with metallic troughs 

 is utterly useless, as experience has shown in this city and in 

 Brooklyn, where much money has been thus futilely spent. 



This fact I discovered after diligently watching this worm for 

 several seasons, and forwarded numerous specimens of the w^orni 

 in its various forms in the year 1855, to the late Dr. T. M. Har- 

 ris, then the distinguished entomologist and librarian of Harvard 

 University, who made a careful study of this species, before 

 unknown to him ; classed it under its appropriate genus ; gave it 

 its special appellation, and it is now enrolled among the hun- 

 dreds of thousands of recognized and characterized insects as the 

 Geomelra Jiiveo-sericcaria, or the snowy-white, silky geometra. A 

 full description of this species, with the date of this scientific 

 recognition, may be found in Hovey's Magazine of Horticulture, 

 printed in Boston, for September, 1855. From this work I make 

 the following condensed descriptive extract,: It shows great 

 neglect upon the part of the editor of the just published second 

 edition of Dr. Harris' great Avork, on ^^ Insects injurious to Vegeta- 

 tion,''^ that no mention of this publication is made therein. One 

 would have supposed that a journal, to which Dr. H. frequently 

 contributed articles upon this his favorite branch of study, would 

 have been carefully examined ; and that this article, in which 

 Dr. H. himself took especial interest, and which he wrote me he 



