INSECTS, BY HARRY H. WHAIX, 79 



of the branches, which the Mass. Board of Agriculture are busily engaged 

 in collecting during the winter months. 



These small nests do not contain moths, as many suppose, but small 

 caterpillars which hibernate during the winter, and are so destructive to the 

 trees in the spring and early summer. 



The moths are on the wing during the month of July. The males 

 are usually pure white on the wings, but are tinged with brown along 

 the body. The females are of the same color as the males, but have a 

 large tuft of brown hairs at the tip of the abdomen, from which they take 

 the name of brown- tail moth. 



The female deposits from two to three hundred eggs on the under sides 

 of the leaves near the tips of the branches. The moths use this tuft of 

 brown hair at the end of the abdomen to cover the eggs, which hatch 

 about the middle of August. The young caterpillars then begin to feed, 

 at first beneath a web which they spin about the leaf, on which the eggs 

 are deposited, and when the fleshy part of the leaf is eaten, another is 

 drawn into the web, and so on till cold weather. They then strengthen 

 their web by adding several layers of silk to the nest, and thus pass the 

 Minter. 



As soon as the buds start on the trees in the spring, the young cat- 

 erpillars emerge from the silken nests and commence feeding. Later thev 

 feed upon the blossoms, although most of the damage being done to the 

 foliage. 



The caterpillars, which measure from one to one and one-half inches in 

 length, and are of a dark brown color, finely mottled with orange, and 

 covered with long, reddish-brown hairs, having along the upper side of the 

 body two rows of large, dense tufts of white hairs, and on top of both 

 the tenth and eleventh segments there is a small bright red tubercle, feed 

 until about the middle of June, when they enclose themselves in cocoons, 

 usually placed at the tipy of the branches. These cocoons are frequently 

 found in great numbers, massed together in sheltered spots along fences, 

 walls, and many other places. 



These moths, unlike the female Gypsy moth, can fly, and therefore 

 are more easily spread. Any high wind, when the moths are flying, is 

 liable to carry and spread them many miles. 



