WINTER MOTH ; EVESHAM MOTH. 159 



the wood and the bark where shoots had been cut back for 

 egg-deposit ; at the truncated end of these cut-back twigs, or 

 small boughs, the Winter Moths had laid their eggs in such 

 numbers that the little specks could be seen with tlie naked 

 eye, arranged so as to form a ring more or less scattered just 

 inside the bark, which had healed since pruning, and so made 

 an outside line of protection to the eggs. This will be found 

 excellently figured in a paper on " The Caterpillar Scourge " 

 in the ' Journal of Horticulture ' for June 5th, 1890 (Fleet 

 Street, E.G.). 



The eggs when laid are stated to be greenish white, but to 

 become orange and subsequently brown before hatching ; my 

 own observations began in the second week in March, when 

 the eggs were changing from their reddish colour to the tint 

 that immcdiatclt/ j^recedes hatching. 



At about the above date, that is, the 11th of March, 1890, 

 Mr. J. Garrood, of Ledbury, had kindly furnished me with a 

 small bundle of A[)ple twigs, which had been placed in a box 

 in the autumn preceding, with a number of Winter Moths, 

 male and female ; the eggs deposited on the spurs sent me 

 being the eggs of these Winter Moths. 



These eggs were bluntly oval, or cylindrical, rounded at 

 each end, about the thirty-second of an inch in length, and 

 the width about two-thirds of the length. The skin was pitted 

 over the surface ; with the help of a moderate magnitier it 

 had the appearance of being shagreened; under a one-inch 

 power the markings showed as circular depressions so re- 

 gularly placed as almost to give a honeycomb-like appearance. 

 Some of the eggs were still of the pale reddish tint of which 

 the above appeared to be when sent me ; a few were of green 

 tint, this apparently from the colour of the caterpillar within, 

 now near development, showing through the filmy egg- skin ; 

 and the many empty egg-shells were now (when seen through 

 a magnifier) mere iridescent films, almost glassy in brightness. 

 To the naked eye they gave the api)earance of the parts of the 

 twig on which they were placed being beset with little patches 

 of greyish or bluish mould, or of the down natural on some 

 kinds of Apple twigs. 



On the 26th of March many of the eggs had hatched, and 

 at this date the caterpillars (from the eggs sent me by Mr. 

 Garrood on the 11th) were perfectly active, moving about 

 characteristically in loops, or placing themselves erect on 

 their sucker-feet. The colour was dingy green or grey; heads 

 black, thus agreeing specially in this point with the observa- 

 tion of Dr. E. L. Taschenberg, that after the first moult the 

 caterpillars have black heads (as well as a black spot on the 

 nape of the neck). Thus, with the guidance to identification 



