210 MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. I906. 



A simple warning to any one who may not be alive to the 

 importance of fighting this insect is given in this bulletin by the 

 significant photograph kindly supplied by Mr. A. H. Kirkland, 

 State Superintendent for Suppressing the Gypsy and Brown- 

 tail Moths in Massachusetts. The photograph, Fig. i6, 

 shows apple trees stripped by caterpillars of the brown-tail moth, 

 June 9, 1905, Winchester, Mass. 



DESCRIPTION AND HABITS. 



The moths. The moths, expanding from one and one-fourth 

 to one and three-fourths inches, are white except for the abdo- 

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

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

 golden-brown tuft in the female is conspicuous enough to be the 

 most striking characteristic of the moth, and has won for this 

 insect its descriptive name of " brown-tail." These moths are 

 on the wing in July, and unlike some closely related pests, the 

 brown-tail females as well as the males are strong fliers. They 

 are active at night, and as lights have an attraction for them, 

 they sometimes fly a long way toward a lighted district. 



The eggs. The female usually selects a leaf near the tip of 

 the branch on which to deposit from 150 to 300 eggs. Some of 

 the brown hairs from the abdominal tuft ^idhere to the egg-mass 

 and give it the appearance of a brown felt lump. 



The caterpillars in the fall. By the middle of August most 

 of the eggs are hatched and the young caterpillars spin a slight 

 web over the leaf near the egg cluster. From this protection 

 they advance side by side, sometimes 200 tiny cater- 

 pillars feeding in an unbroken line, though they huddle together 

 beneath the web when disturbed in any way. When they have 

 eaten all but the skeleton of the first leaf, they draw another into 

 the web and repeat the process at intervals during the late 

 summer. They feed slowly, however, and spend so much time 

 spinning their web that they do comparatively little damage to 

 the trees in the fall, and they are still very small, (about one- 

 fourth of an inch in length,) when cold weather comes on. 



The Winter Nests. In the fall the young caterpillars weave 

 additional layers of silk about their retreat, fastening it securely 

 to the branch by the web, and pass the winter thus in colonies 

 of 150 to 300. This is a very unusual yet most commendable 

 habit in a caterpillar pest, for they can be killed, hundreds at a 



