9 



future occasion, when I shall have had opportunities for studying 

 its entire history. 



It is a cylindrical caterpillar, somewhat resembling a span 

 worm. It has sixteen feet, and is scarcely half an inch long 

 when full grown. It varies considerably in its colors and marks, 

 but is commonly of a pale yellowish or greenish hue, with a dusky 

 stripe on each side of the back, lunning the whole length of its 

 body. Above this, a narrower whitish stripe is more or less dis- 

 tinct, and along the middle of the back is a slender dusky stripe, 

 between tlie whitish ones. With a magnifying glass some black 

 dots, regularly arranged, may be seen along the back and sides, 

 each dot having a short hair growing from it. The head is pol- 

 ished, and of the yellow color of bees-wax. Some worms are met 

 with, however, having black heads. Whether thiese are a dif- 

 ferent species or not, can only be determined when the insect has 

 attained its perfect state. They subsist upon the leaves, eating 

 holes in them, and often devouring all except the coarse veins of 

 the leaf Tiiey also gnaw the young apples, causing them to wilt 

 and fall from the tree. Our crop of apples for the present year 

 is totally destroyed, and it is probable that many of the trees will 

 die also, their foilnge being wholly consumed, so that the trees 

 look brown, as though they had been scorched by fire. When 

 the tree is shook or jarred, many of the worms let themselves 

 suddenly down from it, some to the ground, others suspended in 

 the air by a fine thread like gossamer, which they spin. If it is 

 menaced or annoyed when on the ground, with a wriggling mo- 

 tion it runs backwards and forwards with surprising agility. 

 This worm evidently belongs to the family of leaf-rolling moths, 

 (ToRTRiciD^) ; and some of these worms may be seen hid in a 

 slight covert which they form by folding the edge of the leaf, or 

 folding it in a cylinder, or drawing two leaves together with their 

 cobweb-like threads. Most of the worms, however, do not at- 

 tempt to form any such covering for their concealment. 



When the worm gets its growth, it crawls away from the tree, 

 and under some leaf or other slight shelter on the surface of the 

 ground, spins a little, oval, paper-like cocoon, of a gray color, 



