248 
HALF HOUES WITH IHSECTS. [Packard. 
insects, for they war upon it with a savage disregard of the 
proprieties of life. The plant lice infest it by millions, 
puncturing the leaves with their tiny beaks, curling them up 
and* transforming the originally beautiful foliage into an 
unpleasing mass of crumpled leaves, alive with moving par¬ 
asites. Then comes the squads^ of canker worms, which 
speedily convert the umbrageous tops into a naked mass of 
limbs, the ghosts of their former selves. While this work 
is going on, and the tree, deprived of its lungs the leaves, 
is, as it were, at its last gasp, industrious borers of different 
patterns are laying out their streets tunnelled beneath the 
bark, like sappers and miners, preparing for the destruction 
of the entire fabric. 
The canker worm infests the elm, and sometimes injures 
it as much as the apple. We have already studied its habits 
and will turn to another 
geometrid caterpillar, which 
so far as regards its destruc¬ 
tive habits replaces in New 
York and Philadelphia the 
canker worm of Boston. It 
is wide-spread, however, over 
the country. I have found 
it in the wilds of northern 
Maine, but it is only known 
to me to abound in exces¬ 
sive numbers in the cities just mentioned. 
The caterpillar, though confounded with the canker worm, 
is quite different in its physiognomy, having a large red 
head, while the body is wood colored, but red again at the 
end. The moth (Fig. 188), which may be called the snowy 
angle-wing, in allusion to the snow-white angular wings, 
flies about in the woods in July and August, when it lays its 
eggs. In the city of New York the caterpillars hatch as 
soon as the leaves unfold in the spring, and for a week or 
24 
Fig. 188. 
The Snowy Angle-wing. 
