299 NATURAL HISTORY CALENDAR. 
and thoroughly examined and cleared of the caterpillars. By well- 
concerted action among agriculturists, who should form a Board of 
Destruction, numbering .every man, woman, and child on the farm, 
this fearful scourge may be abated by the simplest means, as the 
easur aver 
taking proper sanitary precautions. The Canker-worms hatch out 
during the early part of May, from eggs laid in the fall and spring, on 
the branches of various fruit-trees. Just as the buds unfold, the 
young caterpillars make little holes through the epe leaves, — 
the pulpy portions, not touching the veins and midribs. When 
weeks old they creep to the ground, or let Scere down by — 
ning a silken thread, and burrow from two to six inches in the soil, 
where they change to chrysalids in a day or two, and in this state live 
till late in the fall, or oe the early spring, when they assume the 
imago orm orm. The sexes then unite, and the eggs are deposit- 
ed for the is generation. 
The Canker-worm is widely distributed, though its ravages used to 
be confined mostly to the immediate vicinity of Boston. We have seen 
specimens of the moth from New Hampshire, and Norway, Maine, and 
Michizan. Last October, late in the month, and in November, we ob- 
served numbers of them at the White Mountains flying at twilight. 
The Abraxas? ribearia of Fitch, the well-known Currant-worm, de- 
foliates whole rows of currant-bushes. This pretty caterpillar may be 
easily known by its body being of a deep golden se spotted with 
black. The bushes should be visited morning, noon, and night, and 
Soro shaken (killing the caterpillars) and spiked with ashes. 
mong multitudes of beala (Coleoptera) injurious to the crops, are 
the June Bug, is sage Jusca (Fig. 1, from Hasna), whose larva, 
Fig. 1. a larg ite grub, is injurious to the roots of grass 
Ss 
- stages of growth on all kinds of grain, on corn and herds-grass during 
the whole summer.” So widely spread is this insect at present, that 
we have even detected it in August on the summit of Mount Wash- 
-ington 
The Diners, or two-winged flies, contain hosts of noxious insects, 
such as the various oe or two-winged Gall-flies, which now 
