MINERS 63 



for the purpose of spinning its cocoon and changing 

 to a chrysalis. In spinning the cocoon the edge 

 of the leaf is folded down to conceal it, and as 

 you bend this back to reveal the chrysalis you 

 rupture the delicate cuticle, and may imagine, 

 as we long imagined, that the chrysalis is outside 

 the cuticle. After a few days it emerges from the 

 chrysalis as a beautiful little white-and-grey moth. 



Respecting the frequency of these lepidopterous 

 leaf-miners, the following paragraph from Sich 

 may be suggestive and helpful to those readers who 

 would like to get a little first-hand knowledge of 

 these insects. " Our indigenous trees which usually 

 grow in numbers together afford food to numerous 

 species of leaf-miners. For instance, the oak offers 

 a home to at least twenty-four species, while the 

 birch harbours not fewer than thirty-one. But 

 the crab-apple, the maple, and the buckthorn also 

 have leaf-miners attached to them. There are 

 two species which we might even call needle-miners 

 because they mine in the needles of the Scots pine. 

 Bramble-bushes, honeysuckle, and convolvulus have 

 their leaf-miners, and even mistletoe is not exempt. 

 Many low herbs, such as the cloVers and sorrels, 

 give shelter to Leaf-miners, and when we come to 

 the grasses and sedges we find at least forty species 

 which obtain their nourishment from these elegant 

 plants." 



A few Leaf-miners may be found among the 

 larvae of beetles, and there are at least two well- 

 known examples among the grubs of two-winged 



