TENT-CATERPILLAR.
Nearly every one has seen the "tents" of these in neglected trees. See [fig. 5]. They usually betoken the too busy man—the man with too many irons in the fire. They are large, unsightly bunches of webs, closely woven together at the forks of twigs at the ends of limbs or branches. The parents of these worms are moths (see [fig. 6]) which appear in June each year, and deposit their eggs in clusters containing two or three hundred, surrounding small twigs. See [fig. 7]. Sharp eyes, a sharp knife and nimble fingers will bring many to the kitchen fire. These eggs hatch in the warm days of spring, and the tiny worms immediately seek and devour the tender buds and leaves. The day they hatch they begin to build the "tent." Those from the same mass of eggs, say 250, combine to make the home nest or tent. They come out from this tent to feed in the morning, return for a siesta or sleep, and emerge again in the afternoon for a second feed.
They live in this way four or five weeks, becoming, when full grown, about two inches long and nearly as large as a lead-pencil. See [fig. 8]. They are black, with light-colored tufts of hair on the back. Down the center of the back is a white line bordered with irregular yellowish lines. The sides of the body are marked with pale blue, while the under side of the worm is black. When grown they pass to the ground and hunt a sheltered place, where they spin a cocoon, from which, in about three weeks, emerges the adult moth, [fig. 6], the color of which varies from yellowish to reddish brown. The front wings each contain two oblique, whitish lines, dividing the wing into three nearly equal parts. These moths are night flyers during the last half of June and first half of July. They eat nothing. The female lays her eggs as described, and dies.
Remedies. Spare the birds; put up boxes for the bats and owls. Cut off the egg clusters during the winter. Cut and burn the tents, or burn the tents on the tree, with any kind of a torch. Early morning or late evening is the time, as they are then all home. Spray the foliage nearest the tents with solutions for canker-worm.