Sec. 13.] 



ENTOMOLOGICAL. 



233 



served, how perfect a protection is afforded by tlie metallic girdle which you 

 describe. Whether the plan of a Mr. Taylor, spoken of in the papers, is 

 ap improvement, I am not able to say. 



"The whole merit of the plan, however, consists in its adaptation to the 

 habits of the insect. Tlie female — which deposits its eggs upon the body 

 and branches of the tree before the opening of the spring — is wingless, 

 apterous, as we say in Entomology ; and being incapable of flying, is 

 eflectiially arrested by the barrier which is presented by such an open tube 

 encircling the tree. The protection is complete, the application is easy, and 

 the remedy is effectual. 



'• One fiict, however, is to be taken into view, which effectually alters tlie 

 case with us. After fiimiliar study of our New York insect, for several 

 years past, I am convinced that it is an entirely different species, of different 

 liabits in many respects ; and, above all, different in the one particular which 

 gives all its value to the New Haven remedy; our species full 1/ possesses the 

 power of fiiglit. Its progress, therefore, to the body and limbs of the tree 

 for the purpose of depositing its eggs can never be in the least arrested by 

 any such measure as your correspondent proposes to adopt. Protection against 

 the worm in our city can be obtained only by the same method by which 

 ISTew Ilavcu derived hers, viz., the thorough and careful study of the habits 

 of our own species of insect. 



" The very positive assurance of your correspondent, Mr. Webb, that ' it 

 is a law of nature that all the millers whicli produce the measuring worm 

 have no wings by Avliich they can fly one inch,' is in the main true, though 

 perhaps rather strongly stated ; but it applies only to the canker-worm of 

 Kew England. Our species may be seen flying abundantly, both males and 

 females, ascending above the tops of our highest trees, and reaching the 

 large branches with absolute ease. After having observed the whole process 

 very carefully, I am in a position to speak confldently about it ; and I beg 

 to assure your readers that any attempt blindly to imitate the New Haven 

 method Mill only prove a mistaken and uiiprotitable, because ignorant, 

 attempt. In order to ascertain with greater certainty tlie truth upon this 

 point, I transmitted specimens of our New York miller, last summer, to Mr. 

 E. C. Ilcrrick, the accomplished librarian of Yale College, whose investiga- 

 tions of the Xcw Haven canker-worm were published at length, some years 

 ago, in the American Journal of Science, and received from liim the assur- 

 ance that my impression that the two species were entirely distinct w.-^s no 

 doubt correct. Mr. II. also concurred witli me in thinking that the power 

 of flight possessed by the New York moth would require entirely different 

 methods for the prevention of its rav-agcs. 



"Tlie one method which my observation has suggested as eff"ectnal, con- 

 sists in thoroughly scraping the tree after the eggs of the moth have been 

 de[>osifed upon it. Tlie worm with us docs not, as in New Haven, go into 

 the ground and remain there till tiie winter, but goes through its changes in 

 a very brief period. After coming down from the tree, it lays itself up in a 



