358 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



joints. They arc four-fifths as long as tlie body ; the third joint, 

 when viewed sideways, is four times as long as wide ; the third, 

 fourth and fifth joints are equal in length, the remaining joints 

 slowly diminishing in length. On the thorax are four conspicu- 

 ous black spots, and other smaller ones. The legs arc bright 

 honey-yellow ; the basal or hip joints (coxae and trochanters) 

 whitish, wliile the extreme tips of the hind shanks (tibia?) and 

 the whole of the hind toe-joints (tarsi) are blackish brown. 

 The wings are glossy, with dark veins, and expand a little over 

 half an inch. 



The male (Fig. 3 «) is rather smaller (^^o ^"^^^ ^^^ length), 

 and is black. The head is dull honey-yellow. The antcnnte 

 are brown-black, often a little reddish beneath, except toii^ards 

 the base ; they are as long as the body, and while longer than 

 in the female are also somewhat flattened out. The thorax has 

 the wing-scales and the prothorax, or collar, honey-yellow. The 

 under side and tip of the abdomen are honey-yellow. 



The injury done to currant bushes during the past year was 

 very great. In June we saw them in great numbers in a garden at 

 Lawrence, where they had stripped the bushes, eating the leaves 

 down to the leaf-stalk, myriads clustering upon the branches. 

 The Ijirds evidently do not feed upon them, and thus in dealing 

 with this insect we are deprived of one of the most powerful 

 agencies in nature for restraining a superabundance of insect 

 life. 



As this is an important and practical subject, let us digress for 

 a moment, to notice some facts brought out by Mr. J. J. Weir, 

 of the London Entomological Society, on the insects that seem 

 distasteful to birds. He finds by caging up birds whose food is 

 of a mixed character (purely insect-eating birds could not be 

 kept alive in confinement), that all hairy caterpillars were 

 uniformly uneaten. Such caterpillars are the " yellow bears " 

 Arctia and Spilosoma), the salt-marsh caterpillars (^Leucarctia 

 acroca) and the caterpillar of the Yaporer moth (Orgyia), and the 

 spring larvae of butterflies ; with these may perhaps be classed 

 tlie European currant saw fly. He was disposed to consider 

 that the " flavor of all these caterpillars is nauseous, and not that 

 the mechanical troublcsomeness of the hairs prevents their being 

 eaten. Larvae which spin webs, and are gregarious, are eaten 

 by birds, but not with avidity ; they appear very much to dislike 



