456 
ANNUAL REPORT OF NEW-YORK 
according to my own observations, those trees which stood in 
situations where they were openly exposed to the sun appeared 
to be most severely devastated, whilst in some instances at least, 
those standing in the shade of buildings remained green and un¬ 
harmed ; though I was informed of cases in which trees in shaded 
situations were stripped of their leaves. 
The trees everywhere assumed a brown withered appearance, 
looking as though they had been scorched by fire. Apple trees 
and oaks seemed to suffer most, but all other trees and shrubs 
were more or less infested with these worms at this time. On 
jarring or shaking a tree, hundreds would instantly let them¬ 
selves down from among the leaves, by fine threads like cobweb, 
some dropping to the ground, others remaining suspended in the 
air. Persons at work at this time upon potatoes or other field 
crops growing in orchards would have numbers of them crawl¬ 
ing everywhere over their clothes, and, as an instance of the 
power of the imagination, the following may be related: A ro¬ 
bust laboring man assured me that in three instances in which 
these worms happened to fall upon his naked arm he felt a sting¬ 
ing sensation like that from the puncture of a mosquito, this 
being occasioned, as he was firmly persuaded, by their bite. But 
other persons, with these worms crawling in numberless in¬ 
stances upon their naked skin, experienced nothing of this kind; 
and subsisting as they do exclusively upon leaves and other 
succulent vegetation, it is not probable that they employ their 
jaws upon any substance for which they can have no relish; their 
natural resort when irritated being not to bite but to wriggle 
violently and thus throw' themselves away from the place where 
they are molested. 
The worms continued in full force until the night of the 
tw r enty-third of June, when brisk showers ooourred, accompa¬ 
nied with heavy thunder, terminating the drouth which had pre¬ 
vailed, and with this the w'orms suddenly disappeared. Upon 
the following day not one could be obtained by shaking trees 
which had been overrun with them the day before—the rain 
drops falling upon the leaves having doubtless dislodged them, 
in the course of the night, and perhaps drowning a considerable 
portion of them after reaching the ground. With a beating net, 
