MAINE AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENT STATION. 2J 



popular name "yellow-neck." The body is striped longitudi- 

 nally with alternate yellow and black lines. Soft white hairs 

 occur over the whole body but are too thin to be especially 

 noticeable (fig. 9). Like the red-humped caterpillar, these 

 caterpillars are clustered together both while feeding and when 

 at rest. The caterpillars when at rest assume a characteristic 

 and peculiar position on the branch with both extremities of 

 the body raised. When alarmed they jerk their heads and tails 

 in an irritated manner. 



Fig. 9. (After Holland). 



The full grown caterpillars bury themselves in the earth a 

 few inches below the surface, where they transform. into brown 

 pupae, unprotected by any cocoon. They remain in the earth 

 all winter and emerge about the middle of the next summer, 

 when they are transformed to the moth, or mature insect. 



REMEDIES. 



As in the case of the red-humped caterpillar, gathering the 

 caterpillars by hand is the simplest remedy and perhaps the 

 only one which it is necessary to recommend. The caterpillars 

 are gregarious and the whole brood is easily removed from the 

 tree and destroyed. Arsenical sprays will kill them, and may 

 sometimes be a convenient means of combating them. 



Red-Humped Caterpillar. 

 (GEdemasia concinna.) 



During August, September and October, the red-humped 

 caterpillar is one of the most troublesome orchard caterpillars 

 in the State. Many correspondents reported that entire orchards 

 of young trees were stripped of their foliage, except for the 

 mid ribs of the leaves, before the presence of the pest had been 

 discovered. 



