260 APPLIED ENTOMOLOGY 



strong contact insecticide is an effective treatment. For the most part, 

 however, little can be done and in "sugar bushes" extensive defoliation 

 with a consequent reduction of the vitality of the tree and of the sap 

 flow will follow, only relieved after a year or two by an increase in 

 the enemies of this insect to such an abundance as to reduce it to 

 unimportance. 



Some of the western species of Tent-caterpillars make tents, while 

 others do not. Occasionally one species or another may become so 

 abundant as to strip everything in one place, and in such cases the larvse 

 crawl off in enormous numbers seeking for more food. In one instance 

 their line of march was across a railroad, where they were crushed by the 

 car wheels until the rails became so slippery that trains were unable to 

 run except by sweeping the caterpillars off or by blowing them off the 

 track ahead of the engine by jets of steam! 



Family Lymantriidse (The Tussock Moths). This family, though 

 small in numbers in this country, includes some serious pests. The 

 moths are of medium size, and the females in some cases are either 

 wingless or nearly so. The legs are rather thickly clothed with hairs. 

 The group as a whole is one of night-flying insects but a few fly freely 

 in the day time. 



The larvse are often highly, even brilliantly colored, and are thickly 

 covered with hairs. These may be quite uniformly distributed, but in 

 some cases there are also bunches or "tussocks" of them projecting some 

 distance from the skin, and long, slender "pencils," composed of a few 

 hairs which may be a quarter as long as the body of the caterpillar. 

 Most of them feed on the foliage of trees but some have a wide range 

 of food plants. 



The White -marked Tussock Moth (Hem,erocampa leucostigma 

 A. & S.). This common species is found along the entire Atlantic Coast 



from Nova Scotia to Florida and westward at 

 least to Nebraska, and has also been reported 

 from Oregon. It is mainly a pest of shade- 

 trees, and most injurious in and near cities 

 and towns, but at times attacks fruit-trees and 



oQiiQ^Q TYTII o n i n i n v\r 

 FIG. 264. Adult male of injury. 



the White-marked Tussock The adult male moth (Fig. 264) spreads about 



^ucoltigma T^and^sT an inch > and its win S are 6^ with WaV ^ dark 



about natural size. (From bands and light marks. Its antennae are heavily 

 Cmm* A r^sta 190?) ^^ fringed. The female (Fig. 265) is wingless, 



with a gray body. 



The winter is spent in the egg stage, the larvse hatching in the spring, 

 feeding until full-grown, on foliage, then crawling away to pupate, some- 

 times on the twigs but usually either on the bark of the trunk or lower 

 limbs, or on other objects near-by. The cocoons are composed of silk 



