Report of Entothologist. 
355 
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FOURTEENTH REPORT 
ON THE NOXIOUS, BENEFICIAL AND OTHER INSECTS OF THE 
STATE OF NEW YORK. 
By Asa Fitch, M. D., Entomologist of the Society. 
[Copyright secured to the author.] 
Scollop Shell, Scotosia undulata , Linn. (Lepidoptera. Geometridae.) 
The last of July, two or more leaves of the cherry fastened evenly together around 
their edges, and between them a pale, black-dotted measure worm, its back dull 
greenish with four white lines, and on each side a dark green stripe; its pupa under 
leaves on the ground through the winter, and in June producing a moth, with wings 
all occupied with alternate blackish and whitish wavy lines. 
A delicate moth, an inch and a half in width, and known to English 
collectors as the scollop shell, from its resemblance to the ribbed shell 
thus named, is marked in a peculiar manner, the whole surface of 
both pairs of its wings being occupied with numerous wavy and 
zigzag lines alternately of a pale gray and a brown or blackish color, 
whereby it is easily recognized and remembered. It is said to be 
met with in woods, sparingly, but almost everywhere through the 
northern countries of Europe, and occurs abundantly in particular 
localities of limited extent. Upon this continent I have several 
times met with it in my own neighborhood, and it has been repeatedly 
found in Canada and Nova Scotia, and as far north as Hudson’s Bay. 
This moth has been well known in Europe for such a long period 
it is remarkable that none of the naturalists there appear to have 
discovered the measure worm from which it is produced, nor the 
vegetation on which this worm feeds. Though the old authors, a 
century ago, mentioned the sallow, Salix caprea, as being the tree 
upon which it is reared, our modern lepidopterologists make no 
allusion to this topic; whence it is evident the worm and its food is 
unknown to them. 
On the first days of August, last year, I noticed that a young 
cherry tree growing in my yard had the two last leaves on the end 
of several of the branches and shoots curiously fastened together, face 
