Eighth Report of the State Entomologist, *J7 1 



a help to you, if you purpose to add to your own observation, the 

 study of what has been learned and written of them by others. 

 To illustrate what I mean: Your apple trees, perchance, are not 

 doing well — something is the matter with, them — probably an 

 insect is the cause. Whai insect is it? Is the apple-tree aphis 

 infesting the buds or curling and distorting the leaves ? Is the 

 bud-worm tying up and consuming the young foliage just as it puts 

 forth? Is th" oyster-shell bark-louse pumping out through hun- 

 dreds of thousands of tubes the life-blood of the tree ? Is the 

 flat-headed borer tunneling the limbs, or the round-headed borer 

 working at the base of the trunk ? Are any of the tiny bark 

 beetles burrowing into the sap-wood, and gradually girdling the 

 tree ? Is the root plant-louse clustering on the roots ? Each of 

 these, and many others that may be cited, are secret or incon- 

 spicuous operations, which must be sought for, w T ith a knowledge 

 of what they are, if you would discover them in time for their 

 arrest 



In addition to names, the characteristics of hidden attack, habits, 

 and the different stages of life, should be known. A shriveled head 

 of grain or discolored stalk may indicate the presence of the wheat- 

 midge larvae in the head, the joint-worm knotting or twisting the 

 stalk, the Hessian fly concealed within the sheath near a joint, or 

 the wheat- stem maggot burrowing the stalk; or the wheat saw-fly 

 may be busily at work cutting off the nearly matured heads and 

 dropping to the ground one-tenth of the crop. If it w^ere generally 

 known that the eggs of the common apple-tree tent-caterpillar 

 could easily be detected upon the leafless trees in autumn or winter, 

 as a broad belt of eggs from a half -inch to three-fourths inch in 

 length, encircling the small twigs near their tips; and if, with such 

 knowledge they were then clipped off and burned, apple orchards 

 would never again have to suffer from such defoliation as they 

 were last year subjected to in Eastern New York and portions of 

 the Eastern States and parts of New Jersey. 



Enlist your Children in the Study. — It can' easily be done. 

 Give them a cluster of eggs, of which to watch the hatching, the 

 emergence of the young caterpillars, the rapidity and eagerness 

 with which they devour the fresh food daily brought them, the 



