DRYOCAMPA RUBICUNDA 



GENUS, DRTOCAM'PA (forest caterpillar). 



SPECIES, RUBICUNDA ("rOSy"). 



" These bugs are eating up a lady's maple-tree. It 's 

 a cut-leaved maple, and she does n't want it killed, so 

 she sent me to have the Bug- woman tell me what to do 

 about it." 



One of Us was " the Bug- woman " to the farm-folk 

 about a small village, and the messenger was a man 

 who cut grass, hoed potatoes, and weeded flower-beds 

 for the ladies of the place. 



The message was a very common one, and we had 

 often been called from the dinner-table by a summons 

 to go and take " some awful big worms," or " terrible 

 big bugs," off the trees and shrubs in the village, while 

 men and women with tomato-cans of crawlers fre- 

 quently appeared in the evening, after the farm-work 

 was done, for us to name and tell "all about" them, 

 that meaning all about the possible harm to crops or 

 trees, and the danger of being stung, bitten, or poisoned 

 by them ; for in the country there is a firm belief in the 

 poisonous qualities of all crawling things, and tremen- 

 dous tales are told, and fully believed, of the results of 

 " poisonous " caterpillar bites. 



Therefore the message did not surprise us at all, and 



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