THE ORANGE MOTH. 63 



CHAPTER XXVIIL 



THE ORANGE MOTH. 



[Hi/drusa sp.) 



Order : Lepidoptera. Section : Heterocera. 



This handsome but destructive moth is to us in Victoria 

 a comparative stranger, at any rate so far as attacking 

 fruit trees is concerned, the year 1891 being the first and 

 only time that I have received the caterpillars from any 

 of my numerous correspondents. 



The larva of this moth (see Plate XXIIL, Fig. 5) is 

 black, and the upper part of its body especially is 

 covered with fine hairs. The colour of the moth is light- 

 orange with black markings (size as shown in Figs. 2, 3, 

 and 4). The pupa is light-brown, and is enclosed in a 

 sort of silky web which is attached (see Fig. 10) to the 

 twigs of the tree on which the larvae feed. (As the figures 

 of this moth and its life history are given in the natural 

 sizes it will be unnecessary to further describe them.) 



The eggs, which we have not seen, are probably 

 deposited on the leaves of the orange tree, as the cater- 

 pillars when they were sent from one of the north-east 

 districts of Victoria were very small and dark coloured. 

 The piece of orange tree (see Fig. 1) on which the larvae 

 were sent was thickly covered with these little black and 

 hairy caterpillars, and the foliage of the tree had suflfered 

 severely from their ravages. On trying to rear the larva?, 

 about 30 or 40 in number, I found I had reckoned without 

 my host, for out of these I managed to rear only six 

 specimens owing to the larvae, even in so young a stage, 

 having been pierced by a small hymenopterous fiy (see 

 Fig. 7), and many of which had hatched in the box, the 

 cocoons thickly infesting certain of the larva? when the 



