80 



BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



Fig. 1. 



^^ 



"'to*' 



a, male; 6, female; c, a portion of one of the an- 

 tennae; d, an enlarged joint of the abdomen; 

 e, ovipositor. 



semble each other, that unless a careful examination be 

 made, one might suppose them to be the same. The spring 

 canker-worm {^Anisopteryx vernata. Peck), Fig. 1, is by 



far the more common of 



Early in the 

 spring, as soon as the 

 snow is clear from the 

 ground, or even before, 

 the perfect moths emerge 

 from under the ground 

 where they passed the 

 winter in the pupa state, and the wingless females crawl up 

 the trunks of the trees, while the males fly aliout and pair 

 with them on the trunks or branches, after which the eggs 

 are laid in clusters in the crevices of the bark, without any 

 regularity or order in their arrangement, sometimes to the 

 number of a hundred. These eggs. Fig. 2, h, are oval in 

 outline, about one-thirtieth of an 

 inch long, and of a delicate pearly 

 yellowish color, and hatch about the 

 time the leaves burst forth from the 

 buds. The larvae have three pairs of 

 true legs, situated on the three seg- 

 ments following the head, and two a, lai-va; 6, eggs, natural size and 

 . /»ii •!! 1x1 enlarged ; c, side view of a 



pairs ot abdommal legs, and there- segment; </, top view of a eeg- 

 fore they move by alternately loop- 

 ing and extending their bodies, and are known as loop- 

 worms, inch-worms or measuring-worms. When fully 

 grown they are from seven-tenths to eight-tenths of an inch 

 long, of a dark brown color, with five broken lines of a 

 lighter color running lengthwise (Fig. 2, a). At this time 

 they often let themselves down from the trees by a silken 

 thread and hang suspended in the air, much to the annoy- 

 ance of persons passing under the trees, and they are often 

 caught by passing vehicles and carried to places more or less 

 remote, and thus their distribution greatly facilitated. 



They now descend to the ground and burrow to the depth 

 of three inches or more, where they spin a fragile cocoon of 

 dull yellowish silk, within which they transform to pupre, 

 and remain in this state till the following spring, when the 



Fio. 2. 



