2 BULLETIN 598, IT. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



lished in America. Since then frequent reports of local outbreaks have 

 been recorded in entomological literature. Complaints have been 

 made to the Bureau of Entomology regularly since 1870, and speci- 

 mens and records of injury have been received annually since 1904. 

 Yet in spite of this constant occurrence there appear to be no records 

 of very great destructiveness. The nearest approach to a general 

 outbreak recorded occurred in 1907, when the bureau received numer- 

 ous complaints from New England as well as scattered reports 

 from other parts of the United States and from Canada. When 

 Harris (I) 1 first described the adult, larva, and pupa as Lophocampa 

 caryae, he gave in addition a brief account of the larval feeding and 

 cocoon-making habits, and listed hickory, elm, and ash as food plants. 

 Fitch (2) in 1855 gave a further account of larval habits and added 

 butternut, sumach, and slippery elm to Harris's list of food plants; 

 and during this same year the species was listed by Walker (3) and 

 figured by Herrich-Schiiffer (4). In 1882 it was listed by Grote (5). 

 Few biological data were added until Beutenmiiller (6) in 1890 

 listed 32 food plants of the hickory tiger-moth. The same year Dyar 

 (7), in discussing head measurements of lepidopterous larva?, re- 

 corded nine larva stages of H. caryae. Soule (8) in 1891 first 

 described the egg and gave life-history records from egg to pupa, 

 but recorded only seven larva stages. Packard (9) in 1893 also 

 described the egg and larva stages and of the latter recorded only 

 five. Eliot and Soule (11) in 1902 gave a popular account of the 

 life history similar to the previous one by the junior author, and this 

 later account is the most nearly complete record of its biology. 



From 1905 to 1908, inclusive, the period when inquiries made to 

 the Bureau of Entomology regarding this insect were most frequent, 

 there were a number of brief references to it by economic ento- 

 mologists in the northeastern United States. These references were 

 brief and added little to the published records except to note its eco- 

 nomic importance. Patch (12) mentions it as a late summer feeder, 

 Felt (13 and 15) records it as of economic importance in New York, 

 Sanderson (14 and 19) records it among apple insects of New Hamp- 

 shire, Britton (16) refers to it as abundant in Connecticut, and 

 Gibson (17) records an unusual outbreak for two years in several 

 Canadian Provinces. Dr. L. O. Howard states that this species was 

 unusually abundant in Greene County, N. Y., in September, 1917. 



COMMON NAME. 



This insect was called the hickory tussock moth by Harris (1), 

 and until a comparatively recent time this name has been used. Corn- 

 stock (10) called it the hickory tiger-moth. The latter name would 



* .Reference is made by number to " Literature cited," p. 13. 



