INSECTS. 101 



portion of the leaf, leaving the veins and lower skin of the leaf un- 

 touched. As they increase in size, they enlarge their web, carry- 

 ing it over the next lower leaves, all the upper and pulpy parts of 

 which are eaten in the same way, and thus they continue to work 

 downwards, till finally the web covers a large portion of the branch, 

 with its dry, brown, and filmy foliage, reduced to this unseemly 

 condition by these little spoilers. These catei pillars when fully 

 grown, measure rather more than one inch in length ; their bodies 

 are slender and are very thinly clothed with hairs of a grayish color, 

 intermingled with a few which are black. The general color of the 

 body is greenish yellow dotted with black ; there is a broad black- 

 ish stripe along the top of the back, and a bright yellow stripe on 

 each side. The warts, from which the thin bundles of spreading, 

 silky hairs proceed, are black on the back, and rust-yellow or orange 

 on the sides. The head and feet are black. Towards the end of 

 August and during the month of September they leave the trees, 

 disperse, and wander about, eating such plants as happen to lie in. 

 their course, till they have found suitable places for shelter and con- 

 cealment where they make their thin and almost transparent co- 

 coons, composed of a slight web of silk intermingled with a few 

 hairs. They remain in the cocoons in the chrysalis state through 

 the winter, and are transformed to moths in the months of June 

 and July. These moths are white, and without spots ; the fore- 

 thighs are tawny-yellow, and the feet blackish. Their wings ex- 

 pand from one inch and a quarter to one inch and three eighths. 

 Their antennae and feelers do not differ essentially from those of tha 

 majority of the Arctians, the former in the males being doubly 

 feathered beneath, and those of the females having two rows of mi- 

 nute teeth on the under-side. The only time in which we can at- 

 tempt to exterminate these destructive insects with any prospect of 

 success, is when they are young and just beginning to make their 

 webs on the trees. . So soon, then, as the webs begin to appear on 

 the extremities of the branches, they should be stripped off, with 

 the few leaves which they cover, and the caterpillars contained 

 therein, at one grasp, and should be crashed under foot. 



APPLE-TREE CATERPILLARS. During the months of July and 

 August, there may be found on apple-trees and rose-bushes little 

 slender caterpillars of a bright yellow color, sparingly clothed with 

 long and fine yellow hairs on the sides of the body, and having 

 four short and thick brush-like yellowish tufts on the back, that is 

 on the fourth and three following rings, two long black plumes or 



