CATERPILLAR. 



CATERPILLAR. 



a half in length, are of a pale green colour, ' 

 with seven oblique white lines on each si-lf 

 of the body, and a row of little notches, like ! 

 saw-teeth, on the back." (//m'.) 



The grape-vine suffers from the ravages of 

 a sphinx caterpillar, which, not content with 

 eating the leaves alone, in their progress from 

 leaf to leaf, down the stem, stops at every 

 cluster of food, nips off the stalks of the half- 

 grown grapes, and allows these to fall to the 

 ground untasted. I have, says Dr. Harris, 

 gathered under a single vine above a quart of 

 unripe grapes thus detached during one night 

 by these caterpillars. They are naked and 

 fleshy, and generally of a pale-green colour, 

 (sometimes, however, brown), with a row of 

 orange-coloured spots on the top of the back, 

 six or seven oblique darker green or brown 

 lines on each side, and a short spine or horn 

 on the hinder extremity. It is found on the 

 vine and also upon the creeper in July and 

 August. When fully grown it descends to the 

 ground, conceals itself under fallen leaves, 

 which it draws together by a few threads so as 

 to form a kind of cocoon, or covers itself with 

 grains of earth and rubbish in the same way, 

 and under this imperfect cover changes to a 

 pupa or chrysalis, to reappear in the winged 

 state in the month of July of the following 

 3 r ear. See GRAPE-VINE CATERPILLAR. 



Among this section of insects, naturalists 

 have placed a group, many of which in the 

 winged state bear a resemblance to bees, 

 hornets, wasps, with their narrow wings. 

 They fly only in the daytime, and frequently 

 light to bask in the sunshine. Their habits, in 

 the caterpillar state, are entirely different from 

 th-)se of the sphinges ; the latter living ex- 

 posed upon plants the leaves of which they 

 devour, while the caterpillars of the agereans, 

 as they are called, conceal themselves within 

 the stems or roots of plants, and derive their 

 nourishment from the wood and pitch. (Har- 

 ris.) 



The ash tree suffers very much from the 

 attacks of borers of this kind, which perforate 

 the bark and sap-wood of the trunk from the 

 roots upwards, and are also found in all the 

 branches of any considerable size. The trees 

 thus infested soon show symptoms of disease, 

 in the death of the branches near the summit ; 

 and then the insects become numerous, the 

 trees no longer increase in size and height, 

 and premature decay and death ensue. These 

 borers assume the chrysalis form in the month 

 of June, and the chrysalids may be seen pro- 

 jecting half way from the round holes in the 

 bark of the tree in this and the following month, 

 during which time their final transformation 

 is effected, and they burst open and escape 

 from the shells of the chrysalis in the winged 

 or moth state. 



"During the month of August, the squash 

 and other cucurbitaceous vines are frequently 

 found to die suddenly down to the root. The 

 cause of this premature death is a little borer, 

 "Ihich begins its operations near the ground, 

 p^forates the stem, and devours the interior. 

 It afterwards enters the soil, forms a cocoon 

 of a gummy substance covered with particles 

 of earth, changes to a chrysalis, and comes 

 276 



forth the next summer a winged insect. This 

 is conspicuous for its orange-coloured body, 

 spotted with black, and its hind legs fringed 

 with long orange-coloured and black hairs. 

 The hind wings only are transparent, and the 

 fore wings expand from one inch to one inch 

 and a half. It deposits its eggs on the vines 

 close to the roots, and may be seen flying 

 about the plants from the tenth of July till the 

 middle of August. This insect, which may be 

 called the squash-vine aegeria, was first de- 

 scribed by me in the year 1828, under the 

 name of JEgeria cunirbitcp, the trivial name in- 

 dicating the tribe of plants on which the cater- 

 pillar feeds. See New England Fanner, vol. 

 viii. p. 33; Dr. Harris's Discourse before the 

 Massachusetts Horticultural Society, in 1832, p. 

 26 ; and Silliman's Journal, vol. xxxvi. p. 310." 

 (Harris.) 



The pernicious borer, which, during many 

 years past has proved so very destructive to 

 the peach trees throughout the United States, 

 belongs to this group of the sphinx family. See 

 PEACH THEE WORM and BORER. 



In Europe there is a species ufatgeria which 

 has long been known to inhabit, the stems of 

 the currant-bush. There is an American in- 

 sect, resembling this, found in the cultivated 

 currant-bush, with which it may have been in- 

 troduced from Europe. See CURRANT-BUSH 

 BORER. 



Several caterpillars belonging to the family 

 of tiger-nwths are very destructive to vegeta- 

 tion, as, for example, the salt-marsh caterpillar, 

 the yellow bear caterpillar of our gardens, and 

 the fall web-caterpillar. These well-known in- 

 sects are covered with coarse hairs, spreading 

 out on all sides like the bristles of a bottle- 

 brush. . They creep very fast, and when han- 

 dled roll themselves almost into a ball. When 

 about to transform, they creep into the chinks 

 of walls and fences, or hide themselves under 

 stones, logs, or fallen leaves, where they en- 

 close themselves in rough oval cocoons, made 

 of hairs, plucked from their own bodies, inter- 

 woven with a few. silken threads. 



The caterpillars of the Jlrge, a species of 

 tiger-moth, sometimes make great devastation 

 among the young Indian corn "in the Southern 

 and Middle States. Their ordinary food con- 

 sists of the leaves of the plantain and other 

 herbaceous plants. It appears in Massachu- 

 setts, sometimes in large swarms, in the month 

 of October. When fully grown they measure 

 about an inch and a half in length. Their co- 

 lour is a dark greenish-gray, although they 

 appear almost black from the multitude of 

 black spots with which they are dotted. They 

 have three longitudinal stripes of fleshy white 

 on the back, and a row of kidney-shaped spots 

 of the same colour on each side of the body. 

 The warts are dark gray, each one producing 

 a thin cluster of spreading blackish hairs. The 

 moth into which this caterpillar is finally con- 

 verted, has flesh-coloured wings which expand 

 | about from 1J to 2 inches. 



Of all the hairy caterpillars frequenting 

 American gardens, there are none so common 

 and troublesome as that which Dr. Harris calls 

 the Yellow Tear. " Like most of its genus," he 

 observes, "it is a very general feeder, devour- 



