138 The Fruit-Growers Guide-Book 



trate the eggs and destroy them better than the tobacco 

 extracts, but are unsafe to use with water strongly im- 

 pregnated with alkali. 



Brown Tail Moth 



This insect is found at the present time only in the 

 region of the New England states, but at the rate it is 

 spreading it may easily occupy the entire country in a 

 short length of time. The adults, moths, of this insect 

 expand 1% to 1^4 inches and are white except on the abdo- 

 men, which is brownish and tipped with a tuft of brown 

 hairs. This tuft is small and dark in the male, but in the 

 female is large and of a golden brown color, and on ac- 

 count of its prominence has won for the insect its name. 

 They may be found on the wing in July. Both sexes are 

 strong flyers and are attracted by artificial lights. 



Eggs are laid in August on the leaves at the end of a 

 shoot, and are covered with a few hairs from the body of 

 the female. The young larvae appear in the course of a 

 few days and feed on the leaves, spinning a web as they 

 feed. In the winter this web is thickened and the colony 

 passes the winter in the nest. These nests are very con- 

 spicuous, as they are so very different from any other win- 

 tering places for a colony of insects. Early in the spring 

 they emerge from the nest and feed on the young leaves 

 of the trees, and when the insects are numerous they will 

 completely strip the foliage in a short time. When full 

 grown they are about \ l / 2 inches long, of a dark brown 

 color with a sprinkling of orange, with the body covered 

 with long fine reddish brown hairs and a row of conspicu- 

 ous white hairs along each side of the body. There is a 

 conspicuous red tubercle on the top of the sixth and sev- 

 enth abdominal segments. 



The unpleasant and dangerous character of these in- 

 sects lays not alone in the harm they do to trees by eating 

 the foliage, but also to the discomfort they cause to man 

 when coming in contact with the hairs which cover the 

 bodies of these caterpillars. These hairs are brittle, very 



