84 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



least disturbance ; but when they have become assured that 

 there is no danger, they ascend again, very much as a sailor 

 climbs a rope, "hand over fist," Fig. G, b. The youno- 

 caterpillars feed on the pulp of the leaves, skeletonizing 

 them ; but when larger, they eat from the edge of the leaf, 

 taking all clean to the midrib. As they grow their skins 

 become too tight, so that it becomes necessary to cast them 

 off, or molt. 



The full-grown caterpillars, Fig. 7, measure about an inch 

 and a half in length, and are the most showy and beautiful 

 caterpillars known to me. They are of a bright yellow 



color, sparingly 

 clothed with long, 

 fine, yellow hairs on 

 their sides, and have 

 four short and thick 

 brush-like yellowish 

 tufts on the top of 

 ^"'' ''' the fourth and three 



following segments, two long black plumes or pencils of 

 hair extending forward from behind the head, and a single 

 plume on the segment before the last. The head and two 

 warts on the ninth and tenth segments are coral red. There 

 is a narrow black or brownish stripe along the back, and a 

 wider dusky stripe along the side. They spin their cocoons 

 on the branches or trunks of the trees, often with a leaf 

 attached, and by this they can be the more readily 

 detected. 



Gentry, in his " Life Histories of Birds," mentions quite a 

 number of our species which feed on the larvEe of this moth, 

 among which are the Baltimore oriole, cedar bird, swallows, 

 warblers, etc. Fitch and others describe several parasites 

 which prey on it, and were it not for these pigmy parasites 

 and our little feathered friends we should be entirely overrun 

 by this very prolific insect. I have found it feeding on the 

 leaves of apple, pear, plum, rose, hop-vine, elm, alder ; and 

 it has been reported as feeding on oak, maple and horse- 

 chestnut. 



