58 INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE APPLE. 



prevents the lodgment of any water on it. The egg-mass is 

 attached to an empty gray cocoon, the former abode of the 

 female which deposited them. 



About the middle of May the eggs hatch, when the young 

 caterpillars at once proceed to devour the leaves of the tree 

 on which they are placed, when disturbed letting themselves 

 down by a silken thread, remaining suspended until danger 

 is past, when they climb up the thread and regain their 

 former position. When mature, they are very handsome, 

 and present the appearance shown in Fig. 50, are more than 



FIG. 50. 



an inch long, of a bright-yellow color, with the head and two 

 small protuberances on the hinder part of the back of a bril- 

 liant coral-red. Along the back there are four cream-colored 

 brush-like tufts, two long black plumes on the anterior part 

 of the body, and one on the posterior. The sides are clothed 

 with long, fine yellow hairs. There is a narrow black or 

 brown stripe along the back, and a wider dusky stripe on 

 each side. There are two broods during the season, the first 

 completing their larval growth and spinning their cocoons 

 about the middle of July ; the second hatching towards the 

 last of July and completing their growth by the end of 

 August, the moths from these latter depositing the eggs, 

 which remain on the trees during the winter. 



The cocoon, as already stated, is spun in the leaf; it is of 

 a loose texture, gray in color, and has woven into it numerous 

 hairs derived from the body of the caterpillar. The enclosed 

 chrysalis is of an oval form and brown color, sometimes whitish 



