STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
495 
other discolorations which will be seen upon the bark around 
it. Even upon the closest scrutiny the eye fails to detect any¬ 
thing by which we can be assured this slight elevation is not a 
tumor which has grown in the bark. A lady to whom I once 
pointed out one of these caterpillars, I could perceive distrusted 
my statement and supposed I was imposing upon her credulity, 
the slight inequality at the point indicated being so exactly like 
a natural tumor upon the bark and so totally unlike a living 
worm. But a mite, wandering over the limb, on coming to this 
elevated spot sought to crawl under it, whereupon it gave a con¬ 
vulsive shrug to frighten the intruder away, by which the lady’s 
skepticism was dispelled. The cocoons which they construct 
upon the limbs are equally exact counterfeits of the bush. One 
of these upon a limb of the wild black cherry is now in the mu¬ 
seum of the State Agricultural Society. It is placed longitudi¬ 
nally in the slight angle formed exteriorly where one limb 
branches from another, and a piece of putty could not be more 
perfectly moulded into this angle and smoothed off so as to leave 
no inequality. The bark of the cherry is blackish with trans¬ 
verse whitish streaks, and this cocoon presents the same colors 
and of tints almost the same, and what is most remarkable, it 
in one place shows a whitish streak continued from the bark 
upon the surface of the cocoon. And finally, in their perfect 
state, the moths imitate appearances which are common upon the 
particular trees on which they dwell; those upon deciduous 
trees, in the colors and scalloped margins of their wings resem¬ 
bling a tuft of withered leaves; those upon evergreens resem¬ 
bling a scar where the turpentine has exuded and concreted into 
a whitish mass. 
Two American species of these curious insects are already 
known, both of them occurring in our State, upon the apple and 
other deciduous trees. To these we now add a third species, 
which resides upon the tamarack or American larch, Abies ( La - 
nx ) Americana. It appears to be a rare insect. A specimen was 
presented to me by Dr. Emmons, in 1847, captured in the neigh¬ 
borhood of Albany that year by Mr. J. H. Salisbury, the chem¬ 
ist. The only other instance in which I have met with it, was 
upon a drooping larch in my front yard, in the year 1854. Upon 
