FOREST INSECTS AND FUNGI III 



the Gipsy moth, is the webs on the terminal twigs in which the 

 partly grown caterpillars spend the winter. The male moth 

 is pure white with a wing spread of about one and a fourth 

 inches, and has a conspicuous reddish-brown tuft at the tip of 

 the abdomen from which it gets its name. The female is some- 

 what larger, but is the same color as the male except that the 

 tuft is larger and of lighter color. The full-grown caterpillars 

 range from one to one and a fourth inches in length. 



Life History. — The winter is passed in the partly grown 

 caterpillar stage as indicated above. These begin work early 

 in the spring, feeding downward from the tips of the branches 

 and leaving the naked twigs and their gray tents as evidence of 

 their sojourn. When numerous, they will devour green fruit as 

 well as leaves and buds and blossoms. A number of caterpillars 

 frequently pupate in a common cocoon of dry leaves at the 

 tips of the branches and sometimes in masses under fences, 

 clapboards, or on the trunks of trees. They pupate in June 

 usually. Their webs may be distinguished frorh those of the 

 tent caterpillar which are always at the forks of the branches. 

 The eggs are laid during July in masses composed of two hun- 

 dred to three hundred, usually on the underside of leaves. 

 These eggs, which are covered with fine brown hairs, hatch in 

 a short time, and the young marauders live on the foHage until it 

 is time for them to make their winter tents. 



Treatment. — As their hibernating nests are conspicuous par- 

 ticularly in early spring, they can then be cut off and burned. 

 The species is killed also by spraying with arsenical mixtures. 

 The range of this insect is similar to that of the gipsy moth, 

 but scattered specimens have been found in Vermont and other 

 sections outside the infected Gipsy moth belt. 



The Larch Sawfly {Nematus erichsonii). 



This insect is distributed through the New England range 

 of the tamarack, on the leaves of which it feeds. Complete 

 defoHation often results from the attack of the sawfly, and the 

 tamarack over a large region may be killed. In the early 



