THE INSECT WORLD. 



271 



to temperature and location. The fight against this insect is told 

 in the reports of the Gypsy Moth Commission of Massachusetts, 

 and these have been distributed wherever the insect has made its 

 appearance. It has not as yet extended beyond Massachusetts ; 

 hence details as to its destruction are not in place here. It is, 

 perhaps, the most dangerous pest ever introduced into the 

 United States, and should the State of Massachusetts abandon its 

 campaign against it, the annual charge upon the farmers of the 

 country would become enormous, if not ruinous. 



To the family Eucleidcs, or Limacodidcs , belong a series of 

 rather modest green and brown moths, usually small in size, very 



Fig. 296. 



The saddle-back caterpillar and its moth, Empretia stimulea. 



densely clothed with scales and hair, the head much reduced, 

 and the tongue wanting. This, by the bye, is quite a general 

 character in the types now under consideration, and which are 

 termed "spinners," because most of the caterpillars make a 

 more or less complete cocoon of silk. The Limacodids are rarely 

 common, and only one species, Empretia stimulea^ has become 

 troublesome in the caterpillar state. This is a very curious, slug- 

 like larva, somewhat flattened and oblong in shape, most of the 

 body green in color, but with a quadrate, red-brown patch 

 resembling a saddle on the middle of the back, and a brown 

 patch at each end of the body, from the outer edge of each of 

 which arises a long, fleshy process, set with stiff spines in all 

 directions. Small warts or processes are found along the sides 

 of the body, set with stiff hairs in the same way. It has no ap- 



