Our forests at present are infested to an unusual extent with a 

 worm so exactly like tliat in tiie orchards, that every body regards 

 them as being identical ; nor have I been able to detect any marks 

 by which they can be told the one from the other. Still, it is 

 probable that they arc distinct species. I have hitherto, in July 

 and August, in different years, captured a moth in our forests, 

 very like the Orchard Moth above described, and which I am in- 

 clined to regard as the parent of these forest worms. It is very 

 slightly larger than the Orchard Moth ; its fore wings are bright 

 ochre-yellow, many of the scales sparkling with the lustre of bur- 

 nished gold, and instead of being freckled, they are covered with 

 crinkled, irregular, transverse lines of an orange color; the pur- 

 plish stripe forward of the middle of the wings, is widened as it 

 approaches the costal edge, and is prolonged \ipon this edge to 

 the base of the wing; and posteriorly, instead of the broad band, 

 there is only a spot of purple blended with orange, situated on the 

 costal edge forward of the apex ; the hind wings are white. In 

 my collection, I have named this species ^rgurolepia sylvalicana 

 or the Forest Moth. We also have, in this State, two or three 

 other species closely resembling those described, but I know 

 nothing of their habits. 



Yours truly, ASA FITCH. 



P. S. July 23d. — Informed that the number of the Journal of 

 the New- York State Agricultural Society for August, had gone to 

 press when the above communication reached you, and tliat it 

 could not, therefore, appear until the issue of the succeeding num- 

 ber, as it was a topic in which our community was mucli inter- 

 ested, and erroneous views were being imbibed, I handed a copy 

 of it to the Salem Press, in which newspaper it was published on 

 the 12th inst., and copies were mailed upon the following day, to 

 my several agricultural and scientific friends throughout the 

 country. A few days after it was written, from the cocoons allu- 

 ded to, I obtained tlie winged motj-i, from which it was evident 

 that the species of ^rgyr-depia, which I had described, was pro- 

 duced by some other worm, as yet unknown, which probably in- 

 fests our apple trees ; whilst the worm which has done so much 

 havoc this season, instead of pertaining to the family ToRXRiciDa:, 



