OAK AND LILAC-ROLLERS. 241 



and the oak, almost as soon as they expand. These are formed 

 by rolling the leaf from its extreme point towards the stalk,- 

 an operation which the caterpillar is only enabled to accomplish 

 by the aiding exercise of its art of weaving since it is by silken 

 threads attached to the leaf that he contrives to pull it into the 

 desired form, wherein it is retained by silken braces. These 

 hold-fasts, which. to the roll of the lilac -leaf are comparatively 

 slender, are numerous and strongly doubled in that of the oak, 

 to meet, seemingly, the greater resistance of its stiffer fibre. 

 The leaf-rollers which thus presume to bend to their purpose 

 the foliage of the forest's monarch (and that often to a prodi- 

 gious and most mischievous extent) assume, in the month of 

 June, the shape of little green moths,"* which, pretty and 

 innocent as they look, are progenitors of caterpillar marauders 

 resembling those which they have been themselves. 



The leaves of the lilac are as often rolled in their length as 

 in their breadth ; but, when thus disposed of, the rollers are 

 of a different species, being sprung from the eggs (one on each 

 leaf) laid thereupon by the lilac-tree moth, a pretty insect, the 

 outline of whose chocolate-brown wings resembles, when she 

 is at rest, the form of a bell. The mode by which her cater- 

 pillars eifect their operations is thus described by Mr. Eennie : 

 "As soon as [one of them] is hatched, it begins to secure 

 itself from birds and predatory insects by rolling up the leaf 

 into the form, of a gallery where it may feed in safety. We have 



* Tortrix viridana, (green oak moth). 



