370 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



Aug. 



the curculio from, have not been eaten by this in- 

 sect, while those that had not this preparation, 

 have been injured. 

 _ I notice that his ravages have been very exten- 

 sive in Lynn, Danvers, Topsfield; and more or 

 less in most of the towns in Essex county. If 

 its true character and habits are not found out 

 and a remedy applied, all will be lost. 



Topsfield, June 2b, \^bZ. J.Lake. 



For the New England Farmer. 

 THE PALMER WORM. 



An insect, formerly known by this name, has 

 appeared in great .numbers upon fruit and forest 

 trees, during the past month. Apple, cherry, and 

 plum trees, and, among forest trees, the white 

 oak, have suffered more or less from its depreda- 

 tions in all parts of New England, and in the State 

 of New York. Communications concerning it, 

 accompanied by specimens, have been sent to me 

 from Bradford, Andover and Westboro', Massa- 

 chusetts ; from New Haven and Salisbury, Con- 

 necticut ; and from Keene and New Boston, New 

 Hampshire. About the 10th of June, the same 

 insects were first observed on fruit trees in my own 

 garden, where, however, they have not been nu- 

 merous, and have not done much injury. In oth- 

 er places, their ravages have been deplorable, and 

 have beeu compared to those of canker worms ; 

 the leaves of trees attacked by them looking as 

 though they had been scorched by fire. In some 

 orchards, they have not spared even the fruit, 

 which has been attacked and mostly destroyed by 

 them. They have now come to their growth, and 

 have finished the course, in their present form, 

 for this season. 



These insects agree, in all respects, with the 

 accounts given of the palmer worms that prevailed 

 in many parts of New England, in June, 1791. It 

 was remarked, after this great visitation, that they 

 did not return the next year in the same places. 

 Whether, until the present season, they have ever 

 again been observed, in the hke profusion, is un- 

 known to me. Probably some of these insects 

 might have been found almost every year by dili- 

 gent search. Perhaps they are the same as those 

 heretofore called fire-worms, of whose history I 

 cannot find anything in print. 



A particular description of the palmer worm 

 ,may be thought unnecessary and superfluous, since 

 the insect has been so recently and so widely ob- 

 served, and has been pretty well described in the 

 newspapers. But, as I have little more to add 

 concerning it, and have been applied to publicly 

 and privately, for information on the subject, it 

 may be proper to put on record an account of it as 

 ik has passed under my own observation. In its 

 early stages, this worm, or caterpillar, though va- 

 rying somewhat in color, is mostly pal« green, 

 with two slender brown lines along the top of the 

 back, and a pale brown head. It has sixteen feet, 

 six of which, near the head, are jointed, ahid end 

 with a single claw ; the others are merely fleshy 

 protuberances without joints, the terminal pair 

 beinw the longest. When fully grown, the insect 

 measures half an inch, or rather more, in length, 

 and then bears a striking resemblance to the com- 

 mon bud-worm of the apple tree ; the back assum- 

 ing, generally, a darker color, and the sides of the 

 body being marked with black points, arranged 



three together on each side of every ring. Two 

 blackish semicircular spots or marks, may also gen- 

 erally be observed, at this period, on the top of 

 the first ring. A few short hairs may be seen on 

 the body by means of a magnifying glass. On my 

 own trees, these insects have confined themselves 

 mostly to the terminal leaves and buds ; on others, 

 in places where they have been numerous, they 

 have spread over all the leaves, and have devoured 

 the whole green substance, leaving only the net- 

 work of veins untouched. They are exceedingly 

 active in their motions, moving either forwards or 

 backwards at pleasure, with a kind of impatient 

 jerking motion, which renders it difficult to hold 

 them. When the trees are shaken, these worms 

 drop, and hang suspended by threads, like canker 

 worms. Whether they leave the trees in the same 

 way, when they have finished their course, — if in- 

 deed they do leave them at this time, and where 

 they undergo their final transformations, I have 

 not ascertained, being prevented by other engage- 

 ments from watching their further progress. One 

 of my correspondents has informed me that these 

 worms mostly disappeared after a late hail storm; 

 and another one states that they all took lesive 

 during a heavy shower on Monday last. A few, 

 that were kept for observation in a glass jar, have 

 covered themselves with a thin web of silk, and 

 some of these have already taken the chrysalis 

 from within their webs. More than half of my 

 specimens have been stung by ichneumon flies, 

 which have deposited a single egg in each one of 

 their victims. The maggots bred from these eggs, 

 are now leaving the lifeless worms, and are spin- 

 ning themselves up in white, oblong oval, silken 

 pods or cocoons. If the palmer worms elsewhere 

 have suffered the same fate in the like proportion, 

 we have little cause to fear for their ravages next 

 year. The chrysalis is about one quarter of an 

 inch long, of a pale yellowish brown color, and 

 differs from that of the bud-worm in not having 

 transverse rows of teeth, or little notches, around 

 its body. The final transformation remains to be 

 observed ; and, until the insect is obtained in the 

 winged or moth state, its scientific name cannot 

 be determined. 



On the morning of the 28th of May, I saw, in 

 the cemetery at Worcester, immense numbers of 

 gray or whitish moths, about twice the size of the 

 common clothes' moth, flying about almost in 

 swarms, being disturbed from the grass and trees 

 by my passing. Two days afterwards, a few of 

 the same little moths were seen in my garden ; 

 and Dr. Sanborn informed me that his garden was 

 alive witti them on the 2.3d of May. They were 

 also very numerous, about the same time, at New 

 Elaven, and in other places since visited by the 

 palmer worms. But vrhether the latter were, or 

 were not, the descendants of these little moths, it 

 would not be safe now to say. The moths, tliough 

 not wholly unknown to me by sight, before this 

 spring, have heretofore been so rare tliat my col- 

 lection contained only a single specimen, and that 

 in too poor a condition to enable me satisfactorily 

 to investigate its scientific character and ascertain 

 to what modern genus it belonged. 



As attention has been generally directed to the 

 habits of the palmer worm during the present sea- 

 son, other persons, more favorably situated than 

 I am, may be expected to pursue and make known 

 the further history and transformations of this de- 



