[ 274 : ] 14 
almost every instance in which I have received specimens, com¬ 
plaint has been made of their gnawing the young apples, and 
examples of the fruit thus corroded have generally been sent in 
the packages with the caterpillars. The effect is either to destroy 
the fruit, or, where the corrosion is less in extent, to induce a de¬ 
formity in its future growth. This kind of injury can only be 
done by the first or spring brood of caterpillars. The later brood 
will sometimes strip the tree of its foliage after the apples are 
nearly grown, and I have this year seen the curious spectacle of 
an orchard loaded with apples with scarcely a leaf to be seen upon 
any of the trees. The only injurious effect in this case seemed to 
be the diminishing somewhat the size of the fruit. 
This is one of our most widely distributed insects, having been 
noticed in most of the States east of the Mississippi River. The 
female is wingless, and it could have obtained this wide geographic 
range only by being transported upon nursery trees from one lo¬ 
cality to another. This is sufficiently explained by the fact that 
the female moth lays her eggs upon her cocoon, which is attached, 
sometimes to fences or other objects, but usually to the twigs of 
the tree upon which she has fed. If left to themselves, therefore, 
these insects would migrate very slowly, and in point of fact, are 
remarkable for committing their ravages within very limited 
ranges. For this reason they have never been regarded as nox¬ 
ious insects of a very serious character. 
The Tussock-moth caterpillars are solitary in their habits; that 
is, they do not live together in families like the Tent-caterpillar 
and many others. This would render them very difficult to eradi¬ 
cate, were not their distribution limited by the wingless and sta¬ 
tionary character of the female moths. They do not cover them¬ 
selves with a web, but they have the power of letting themselves 
down from the tree by a thread, when disturbed. 
These insects are remarkable for the great variety of foliage 
upon which they can subsist. Though they seem to prefer the 
apple, yet they feed freely upon the oak, maple, elm, plum, pear, 
horse-chestnut, black-walnut, larch, and rose-bush. 
They pass the winter in the egg state, attached for the most 
part to the twigs and branches of trees, and as the egg masses are 
fastened to the outside of the cocoon from which the female has 
emerged, they form very conspicuous objects upon the leafless 
V 
