422 THE MAGAZINE OF HORTICULTURE, 



Geometra niveosericearia, the snow-white silky Geometer.* 

 I am not able satisfactorily to refer it to any of the numerous 



genera proposed by English and 

 French entomologists. Huebner, 

 whose classification is based chiefly 

 on the color and markings of the 

 wings, would probably have placed 



THE MEASURE-WORM. ^i • .... ^^ 



this species in his genus Gypso- 

 chroa. It probably has a wide range in the United States. 

 Mr. Abbot's drawings were made from specimens found in 

 Georgia ; and a single male in my collection was taken many 

 years ago by my friend, the Rev. L. W. Leonard, D. D., in Dub- 

 lin, New Hampshire. I have not yet seen it in Massachusetts. 



The eggs, as before stated, are deposited, during the first 

 half of July, on the bark of trees, and mostly in clusters of 

 fifty or more together. A writer, with the signature of Alexis, 

 in the New York Daily Times, asserts that the females lay 

 their eggs before their wings are developed. The eggs are a 

 little more than one twentieth of an inch in their longest di- 

 ameter, are olive-colored, and in shape oblong oval, slightly 

 compressed, with the upper end truncated and closed with an 

 oval, flattened lid. They are placed on their lower rounded 

 ends, and incline a little obliquely on each other. 



Alexis, the writer above referred to, has described one of 

 the best methods for getting rid of these insects, almost ex- 

 actly in the following words. At midday, or during the 

 hours of warmest sunshine, when the worms are most active, 

 a sudden jar, with the hand upon small trees, with a mallet 

 on large ones, repeated at intervals if necessary, will dislodge 

 and bring down hosts of the insects. All their threads, by 

 means of which they have let themselves down^ are to be 

 broken by a sweeping horizontal blow, and all the fallen in- 

 sects are to be destroyed upon the ground. This operation, 

 repeated three or four days in succession, will efll'ectually clear 

 every worm from the trees, according to the foregoing writer's 



* Geometra ( Gypsochroa ? ) niveo- sericearia, nivea, alls subaiigulatis, sericcis, subdi- 

 aphanis, supra immaculatis, sublus punctodiscoidali brunneo : antennae marum pectinatoe, 

 foeminarum subserratae. Metamorphosis intra folios, tela irreejulari, retiibrmi. 



