THE WALNUT. 253 



The caterpillars of some of the smaller kinds of 

 moths are, as a rule, far more destructive to the leaves 

 than the larger, and their ravages often escape notice 

 until it is too late for the use of preventives, or for their 

 destruction with insecticides. 



Ever since I became connected with the New York 

 city press, some thirty odd years ago, scarcely a season 

 has passed during which one or more specimens of the 

 Eegal walnut caterpillar (Citheronia regalis), shown in 

 Fig. 99, have not been received from some correspondent 

 who had found them crawling down the stem or on the 

 ground near a walnut tree. Such a large caterpillar 

 would naturally attract the attention of almost any per- 

 son, but to the timid its appearance is exceedingly fero- 

 cious and repulsive, while to the entomologist it is a 

 beautiful and interesting creature, and far more likely 

 to be handled with care than injured. This caterpillar 

 is of a green color, and transversely banded across each 

 of the rings with pale blue. The head and legs are of 

 an orange color, also the long spine or horns, with the 

 points tipped with black. It is certainly very formid- 

 able in appearance, but perfectly harmless, and may be 

 handled with impunity. The parent moth (Fig. 100) 

 has fore wings of an olive color, ornamented with small 

 yellow spots and veined with red lines. The hind wings 

 are orange-red, with two large irregular yellow patches 

 before, and a row of wedge-shaped olive colored spots 

 between the veins behind. Although this insect appears 

 to be widely distributed over the country, and the cat- 

 erpillars feed on the walnuts and occasionally on the 

 hickory, it has never been known to be sufficiently nu- 

 merous to attract any special attention. 



