278 THE APPLE CULTURIST. 



ble size, inside of which it lives gregariously, skeletonizing 

 the leaves that it -has thus appropriated, and filling them 

 with its gunpowder-like excrement. It was so abundant 

 in 1868, in some orchards, as nearly to strip many trees, 

 especially in young orchards that were in an unthrifty con- 

 dition. It is quite different from the Rascal Leaf-crum- 

 pler (PTiycita nebula), which lives all the time in a little 

 black horn-like case ; whereas this larva carries no house 

 on its back. Moreover, the Leaf-crumpler is solitary in its 

 habits ; whereas this species live in communities of several 

 dozen during their entire larval life. As to the moths pro- 

 duced from these two Iarva3, they are as different from 

 each other as a goat is from a sheep. 



The only reliable way to prevent the depredations of 

 such pests is to trap the moths in bottles, to catch the lar- 

 vae and kill them, and tear down their nests before they are 

 half built. Birds will destroy a great many when the worms 

 are very small. 



The Army- worm (JVoctua unipuncta). This noxious in- 

 sect is hatched from an egg deposited by the parent moth 

 Fig. in. (Fig- HI) at the base of perennial 



grass-stalks. The eggs hatch, in dif- 

 ferent localities, from May until the 

 middle of July. Some entomologists 

 affirm that these moths seek low 

 meadows to deposit their eggs. The 



Army-worm Moth. eggg ar(J consequen tly deposited Over 



a greater area of territory; and if the succeeding year 

 prove wet, and favorable to the growth of the worms, we 

 shall have the abnormal condition of their appearing on 

 our higher and dryer lands, and of their marching from 

 one field to another. For just as soon as the green grass 

 is devoured in any particular field in which they may 

 have hatched, these worms are forced, both from hun- 



