72 



INSECTS INJURIOUS TO THE APPLE. 



Fig. 66. 



yellowish band, speckled more or less with black. The body 

 is covered with long straight hairs, grouped in tufts, arising 



from small black or orange-yel- 

 low protuberances, of which there 

 are a number on each segment. 

 The hairs are sometimes of a 

 dirty white, with a few black 

 ones interspersed, sometimes red- 

 dish brown ; they are longest 

 towards the extremities of the body. Unlike the common 

 tent-caterpillars, these larvae do not wander from their nests 

 to feed until nearly full grown, but extend the web over their 

 w^hole feeding-ground, constantly enclosing fresh portions of 

 the branch occupied, until sometimes the web covers a space 

 several feet long, the whole enclosed portion having a scorched 

 or withered look, as if it had been blighted. When nearly 

 at their full growth, they suddenly abandon their social habits 

 and scatter far and wide, feeding on almost any green thing 

 they meet with. They are very active, and run briskly when 

 disturbed. 



During September and October these caterpillars descend 

 to the ground and burrow a short distance under the surface, 

 or creep under crevices of bark or some such shelter above 

 ground, where they form slight cocoons of silk, interwoven 

 with hairs from their bodies. Within these cocoons they 

 soon change to chrysalids of a dark-brown color (Fig. 67), 



Fig. 67. 



Fig. 68. 



smooth, polished, and faintly punctated, with a swelling about 

 the middle. In this condition they remain until the following 

 year. 



The moth (Fig. 68) is of a milk-white color, without spots ; 



