STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
821 
OAK. LEAVES. 
appearance and habits to our common and well known Apple-tree cater¬ 
pillar. Its nests, however, are very seldom seen, even though diligently 
sought, being of so slight a texture and placed along the side of the trunk or 
of one of the larger limbs of the tree, and hereby rendered inconspicuous. 
It is only after the worms leave their nests and are leisurely rambling 
about singly, that they como to our notice. Almost every year, the fore 
part of June, some three or four of these wanderers may be observed, and 
occasionally a season arrives when they are remarked as much more com¬ 
mon, but never numerous. This, in brief, has been their history, within 
the sphere of my own observation. Abbot states (Insects of Georgia, p. 
117,) that they are “ sometimes so plentiful in Virginia as to strip the 
oak-trees bare ” He was probably misinformed, however, upon this point; 
for Dr. Morris, of Baltimore, informs me they are no more common in that 
district than I represent them to be here in New York, and nothing 
approaching to the statement of Abbot has ever been known there, at least 
by the present generation. In his own vicinity in Georgia, Abbot says it 
is rare. It thus appears that this caterpillar is about equally diffused 
throughout our country and is nowhere common. 
Tho catf.upili.au, as seen after it has forsaken its nest and is wandering about, is an inoh 
and a half long and 0.20 thick. It is cylindrical and of a pale blue color, tinged low down on 
each side with greenish gray, and is everywhere sprinkled over with black points and dots. 
Along its back is a row of ten or eleven oval or diamond-shaped white spots which are simi¬ 
larly sprinkled with black points and dots, and are placed ono on the fore part of each seg¬ 
ment. Behind each of these spots, is a much smaller white spot, occupying the middle of each 
segment. The intervening space is black, which color also forms a bordorsurrounding eaoh of 
the spots, and on each side is an elevated black dot from which arises usually four long black 
hairs. The hind part of each segment is occupied by three crinkled and more or less inter¬ 
rupted pale orange yellow lines, which are edged with black. And on each side is a continu¬ 
ous and somewhat broader stripe of tho same yellow color, similarly edged on each of its sides 
with black. Lower down upon each side is a paler yellow or cream colored stripe tho edges of 
which are more jagged and irregular than those of the one above it, and this stripo also is 
bordered with black, broadly and unevenly on its upper side and very narrowly on its lower 
side. The back is clothed with numerous fine fox-colored hairs, and low down on each side 
are numerous coarser whitish onos. On the under sidcisa largo oval black spot on each segmont 
except the anterior ones. Tho legs and prologs are black and clothed with short whitish hairs. 
The head is of a dark bluish color freckled with numerous black dots and clothed with short 
blackish and fox-eolorcd hairs. Tho second segment or neck is edged anteriorly with cream 
white, which color is more broad upon the sides. The third and {fourth sogmonts have oaeh a 
largo black spot on each sido. The instant it is immersed in spirits the blue color of this 
caterpillar vanishes and it becomes black. 
Several of these caterpillars found abroad upon the last days of May 
and inclosed in a cage ate scarcely anything afterwards, yet did not spin 
their cocoons until the 10th and 18th of June, and the moths come out 
therefrom twenty days afterwards on the 6th and 8th of July. It selects 
a sheltered spot for its cocoon, such as a corner or angle formed by the 
meeting of two or three sides. Across this angle it first draws a curtain, 
which is thinly woven of white silk threads, nearly two inches in length 
and width. Under the space thus inclosed similar threads are crossed in 
all directions, in the center of which the inner pod-like cocoon is sus- 
