them to decay. The worm, a pale greenish yellow caterpillar with a 
pale reddish head, begins its depredations in July, and continues until 
the fore part of October. They bore into the fruit and eat the fleshy 
part, growing rapidly and attaining their growth in from three to 
four weeks. When about to change they leave the fruit in which 
they have burrowed, and, drawing together a portion of some leaves 
near the ground, spin a slight cocoon of white silk, in which they 
change to slender brown chrysalids. The earlier insects change to 
moths in eight or ten days, but the late ones remain in the chrysalis 
state during the winter. The moth that issues from these chrysalids 
is yellowish brown with an iridescent reflection, the fore wings hav¬ 
ing an “irregular, semi-transparent dull golden yellow spot” from the 
hind margin to the middle, and the hind wings, all but the outer bor¬ 
der, semi-transparent yellow. 
Remedies. —Cucumbers, melons or squashes found to contain these 
worms may be picked with the worms in them and destroyed. 
Note. —This worm is often very injurious to nutmeg melons or cant leups, and during the 
present season has destroyed quite a number in some parts of southern Illinois. After the worm 
is once established in a melon there is no remedy, and all such melons should at once be fed to 
the hogs or otherwise destroyed. It is possible that gardeners by learning to know the moths may 
be able to destroy many and thus lessen the destruction.—C. Thomas. 
Pempelia hammondi, Riley—The Apple-leaf Skeletonizer. 
In the Sept.-Oct. number of the second volume of the American 
Entomologist, 1869, this insect is mentioned in answer to a question 
by H. K. Vickroy. of Champaign, as a new species that had been very 
abundant about Warsaw and Quincy the preceding year, as well as 
having occurred in some other places. The name by which it was 
there designated was “Hammond’s Leaf-tyer,” to distinguish it from 
the Apple-leaf Crumpler, which it somewhat resembled in some of its 
particulars, as w r ell as because the insects had been first brought to 
notice by Mr. A. C. Hammond, of Warsaw, Ill. An account of the 
insect, and its manner of work, may be had from the 4th Missouri 
Report, w r here Prof. Riley says: 
“In the fall of the year the foliage of trees in young orchards, and 
especially in the nursery, often wears a blighted, corroded, rusty 
look, and upon carefully examining it such appearances will be found 
to result from the gnawings of this little skeletonizer. A badly in¬ 
fested orchard or nursery presents such a decidedly seared aspect that 
it attracts attention at a great distance. * * * The rusty appear¬ 
ance is produced by the worm feeding solely on the green pulpy parts 
of the upper surface of the leaf, and. thus leaving untouched the 
more fibrous framework. In some cases the pulpy portions are eaten 
very thoroughly, so that nothing remains but the semi-transparent 
epidermis below and the net-work of veins; but more usually a cer¬ 
tain amount of the parenchyma is left, and this it is which acquires 
a bright rust-red appearance. The worm always covers the leaf with 
loose, tender, silken threads, with which it mixes numerous little 
black, gunpowder-like, excrementitious grains; and it is under this 
covering that it feeds. It is semi-gregarious, either living alone on 
the leaf, or in company within a bunch of leaves tied together. 
