TnB Forest Caterpillak 



125 



attacked last year have gone free this year while other places that escaped 

 last year have suffered severely this year. They have eaten every green 

 tree and bush, I think, except the cut-leaved maple and the sumachs which 

 do not seem to have been touched. The cocoons are on every sort of tree, 

 not excepting these two. 



There have been very many small sized worms this year and also many 



that did not seem able to spin a fine and finished cocoon. This has seemed 



•f to indicate to me that 



perhaps they were not so 

 vigorous as last year. 

 They have seemed more 

 lazy. Very many of the 

 pupae in the cocoons are 

 destroyed by parasites. I 

 find in them small black 

 flies and also small, very 

 brilliantly red beetles and 

 a large proportion of the 

 pupae are eaten, and will 

 never rise to the dignity 

 of millers. The worms 

 seem to have taken to 

 syndicates this year, two 

 or three spinning together 

 in one leaf as if they 

 needed help. Many of 

 them spin nothing but 

 the yellow cocoon, omit- 

 ting to spin the blanket 

 of silk which they ought 

 to begin with. 



The warfare with them 

 has been almost hopeless 

 this year. It has been 

 pitiful to see a farmer struggling day after day with his little orchard of 

 apple trees while forced meantime to see the destruction of his maples." 



I may add to the above that the most sorry looking maple groves that I 

 saw in 1899 were in and about Stowe, and I doubt if anywhere in the state 

 greater damage was done than in that region. 



Mr. W. J. Morse writes that " Clisiocampa disstria has been an unwel- 

 come guest for two seasons in great numbers ; for how much longer I do not 

 know. Considerable damage was done in 1897 and the trees were practi- 

 cally stripped in 1898. The favorite trees appear to be the maple, apple 



FIGURE 9. MOTH OF THE TENT-CATERPILtAR 

 Female ou apple leaf, natural size From Lowe 



