ATTACKING THE LEAVES. 51 



Remedies, — Since the tent-caterpillar is so easily detected 

 by its conspicuous nest, it need never become very trouble- 

 some, as the larvae may be easily destroyed while sheltering 

 within it. They seldom leave the nest to feed until after 9 

 A.M., and usually return before sundown; hence the early and 

 late hours of the day are the best times for destroying them. 

 With a suitable ladder and a gloved hand the living mass 

 may be seized and crushed in a moment, or the nest may be 

 torn from the tree and trampled under foot. Where a ladder 

 is not at hand, the nests may be removed by a pole with a 

 bunch of rags tied around the end of it. This work is most 

 easily done while the larvae are young, and should be at- 

 tended to as soon as the cobweb-like nests can be seen. Some- 

 times when the nest is destroyed a portion of the caterpillars 

 will be absent feeding, and within a few days it may be found 

 partly repaired, with the remnants of the host within it : so 

 that to subdue them entirely repeated visits to the orchard 

 should be made, and not a fragment of a nest permitted to 

 remain. Governments might well enforce under penalties the 

 destruction of these caterpillars, as their nests are so conspic- 

 uous that there can be no excuse for neglecting to destroy 

 them, and it is unfair that a careful and vigilant fruit-grower 

 should be compelled to suffer from year to year from the 

 neglect of a careless or indolent neighbor. Neglected trees 

 are soon stripped of their leaves, and become prematurely 

 exhausted by having to reproduce at an unseasonable time 

 their lost foliage; with fruit-trees this is so great a tax on 

 their vital powers that they usually bear little or no fruit the 

 following season. The egg-clusters may be sought for and 

 destroyed during the winter months, when, the trees being 

 leafless, a practised eye will readily detect them. A cloudy 

 day should be selected for this purpose, to avoid the incon- 

 venience of too much glare from the sky. 



Several parasites attack this insect. A minute Ichneumon 

 fly, about one-twenty-fifth of an inch in length, is parasitic on 

 the eggs. By means of a long ovipositor it bores through 



