468 LEPIDOPTEKA. 



In the " Manchester Guardian,*' an English newspaper, of 

 the 4th of November, 1840, is the following article on the 

 use of melted Indian rubber to prevent insects from climbing 

 up trees. " At a late meeting of the Entomological Society, 

 [of London ?] Mr. J. H. Fennell communicated the fol- 

 lowing successful mode of preventing insects ascending the 

 trunks of fruit-trees. Let a piece of Indian rubber be burnt 

 over a gallipot, into which it will gradually drop in the con- 

 dition of a viscid juice, which state, it appears, it will always 

 retain; for Mr.* Fennell has, at the present time, some which 

 has been melted for upwards of a year, and has been exposed 

 to all weathers without undergoing the slightest change. 

 Having melted the Indian rubber, let a piece of cord or 

 worsted be smeared with it, and then tied several times round 

 the trunk. The melted substance is so very sticky, that the 

 insects will be prevented, and generally captured, in their 

 attempts to pass over it. About three pennyworth of Indian 

 rubber is sufficient for the protection of twenty ordinary- 

 sized fruit-trees." Applied in this way it would not be suf- 

 ficient to keep the canker-worm moths from getting up the 

 trees ; for the first-comers would soon bridge over the cord 

 with their bodies, and thus afford a passage to their followers. 

 To insure success, it should be melted in larger quantities, 

 and daubed with a brush upon strips of cloth or paper, 

 fastened round the trunks of the trees. Worn out Indian 

 rubber shoes, which are worth little or nothing for any other 

 purpose, can be put to this use. This plan has been tried by 

 a few persons in the vicinity of Boston, some of whom speak 

 favorably of it. It has been suggested that the melted rub- 

 ber might be applied immediately to the bark without injur- 

 ing the trees. A little conical mound of sand surrounding 

 the base of the tree is found to be impassable to the moths, 

 so long as the sand remains dry ; but they easily pass over it 

 when the sand is wet, and they come out of the ground in 

 wet as often as in dry weather. 



Some attempts have been made to destroy the canker- 



