'WW 



FAMILY LASlDCAMPADiE. 235 



appear in April or May. Their habits enable us to take advantage of them, and destroy 

 vs'hole broods at once : numbers of them retire in a body to their tents at stated times of 

 the day, when both houses and inhabitants may be destroyed by one sweep with a pole 

 properly armed. 



Clisiocampa AMERICANA (Harris). American Tent Caterpillar. (Plate xlv, fig. 1.) 



( Plate xlvii, fig. 6 : eggs.) 

 Color rust-brown or reddish brown, variegated with gray especially on the middle and 

 base of the forewings. Anterior wings crossed obliquely by two dingy white parallel 

 lines : margin ciliate and whitish. Hindwings without lines or spots : a portion of 

 the costal margin whitish. Beneath darker. 



The caterpillar has a black head, and its back is marked by a whitish line. On each 

 side of this white line there is a broad longitudinal stripe, formed by a yellowish ground 

 marked by crinkled lines coalescing below, so as to make a row of spots upon each ring 

 of the body, in the middle of which is a small blue spot : below is a narrow wavy yellow 

 line ; and lower still, the sides are variegated with black and yellow lines. Underside of 

 tbe hody dusky. The eleventh ring bears a small blackish hairy wart, and the body is 

 sparingly clothed with hairs. 



The caterpillars come to maturity and begin to leave the trees by the middle of June ; 

 or, in other words, they then break up their encampment, and each seeks some suitable 

 crevice in which to make its cocoon. 



This is one of the most injurious caterpillars known to infest gardens and orchards. As 

 the eggs are deposited upon the trees, they are enabled, as soon as hatched, to begin their 

 depredations npon the young and tender leaves. We cannot, as in some other instances, 

 prevent the ascent of the young caterpillars up the trees, for they are already there ; but 

 we may, after the fall of the leaves, search for the eggs, which are deposited in quite 

 conspicuous rings around the twigs, and remove them by hand, whereby an entire brood 

 will be totally extirpated ; and if a general attention be given at this period, an orchard 

 need never suifer from the operations of this insect. 



The damage that trees occasionally suffer by neglect is very great ; for the tree, when 

 deprived of its leaves, Avill die, or else must put forth a new crop, an alternative that 

 seems always to produce a state of great exhaustion, and from which the tree scarcely ever 

 entirely recovers. From this cause, when a tree has been neglected for several seasons, and 

 consequently has become stocked with these devourers, it barely sustains itself, and soon 

 shows marks of old age and premature decay : many limbs actually die the first season, 

 and the whole tree wears the appearance of poverty and distress. 



The direct means to be instituted for ridding an orchard of these destructive visitors, 

 must be such as can act upon the whole brood while sheltered in their tents. These means 



