THE SALT-MAKSH CATERPILLAR. 
351 
Fig. 169. 
■\. / I 
It expands from one inch and a half to two inches. Its eggs 
are of a golden-yellow color, and are laid in patches, npon the 
leaves of plants. In some parts of France, and in Belgium, 
the people have been required hy law to echeniller^ or uncat¬ 
erpillar, their gardens and orchards, and have been punished 
by fine for the neglect of the duty. Although we have not 
yet become so prudent and public-spirited as to enact similar 
regulations, we might find it for our advantage to offer a 
bounty for the destruction of caterpillars ; and though we 
should pay for them by the quart, as we do, for berries, we 
should be gainers in the end, while the children whose idle 
hours were occupied in the picking of them would find this a 
profitable employment. 
The salt-marsh caterpillar (Fig. 169), an insect by far too 
well known on our seaboard, and now getting to be common 
in the interior of the 
State, whither it has 
probably been intro¬ 
duced, while under 
the chrysalis form, 
Avith the salt hay an¬ 
nually carried from the coast by our inland farmers, closely 
resembles the yellow bear in some of its varieties. The 
history of this insect forms the subject of a com.munication 
made by me to the Agricultural Society of Massachusetts, in 
the year 1823, and printed in the seventh volume of the 
“ Massachusetts Agricultural Kepository and Journal,” with 
figures representing the insect in its different stages. At 
various times and intervals since the beginning of the present 
century, and probably before it also, the salt marshes about 
Boston have been overrun and laid waste by swarms of cater¬ 
pillars. These appear toAvards the end of June, and groAV 
rapidly from that time till the first of August. During this 
month they come to their full size, and begin to run, as the 
phrase is, or retreat from the marshes, and disperse through 
the adjacent uplands, often committing very extensive ravages 
