LEPIDOPTERA. 377 



leaves of the apple-tree. They live singly in the buds, the 

 leaves of which they fasten together and then devour. These 

 caterpillars are of a pale and dull brownish color, warty and 

 slightly downy like the foregoing kind, with the head and the 

 top of the first ring dark shining brown ; and a dark brown 

 spot appears through the skin on the top of the eighth ring. 

 They generally come to their growth by the middle of June, 

 and are changed to shining brown chrysalids within the curled 

 leaves, in a little web of silk, wherewith their retreats are lined. 

 The chrysalis has only one row of prickles across the rings of the 

 back. The moths come out early in July. They very closely 

 resemble the European Penlhina comitana* and perhaps may 

 be merely a variety of it. The head and thorax are dark ash- 

 colored. The fore wings are of the same color at each end, 

 and grayish white in the middle, mottled with dark gray ; 

 there are two small eye-like spots on each of them ; one near 

 the tip, consisting of four little black marks, placed close 

 together in a row, on a light brown ground, the inner marks 

 being longer than the others; the second eye-spot is near the 

 inner hind angle, and is formed by three minute black spots, 

 arranged in a triangle, in the middle of which there is some- 

 times a black dot. The hind wings are dusky brown. This 

 moth expands from one half to six tenths of an inch. It may 

 be called Penthina ociikma, the eye-spotted Penthina. My 

 attention was called to the depredations of this bud-moth, and 

 of the preceding species, by John Owen, Esq., of Cambridge, 

 by whom the moths were raised from the caterpillars, and 

 presented to me. It is ditficult at first to conceive how such 

 insignificant creatures can occasion so much mischief as they 

 are found to do. This seems to arise from the number of the 

 insects, and their mode of attack, whereby the opening foliage 

 is checked in its growth or nipped in the bud. To pull oft' 

 and crush the withered clusters of leaves containing the eater- 

 pillars or the chrysalids, is the only remedy that occurs to me. 

 It were to be wished that some better way of putting a stop 



* Spilonota comitana, Stephens; rcccilochroma comitana, Curtis; Penthina lus- 

 cana, Duponchel. 



48 



