LACKEY MOTH. 293 



they may be found in winter and spring arranged in a compact 

 mass, or rather ring-hke band on the twigs, exactly as figured 

 (p. 292). From these eggs small black hairy caterpillars hatch 

 about the beginning of May, and immediately spin a web over 

 themselves, which they enlarge from time to time as needed 

 for their accommodation. In these web-nests they live in 

 companies of from fifty to two hundred, and from them the 

 caterpillars go out to feed on the leaves, returning for shelter 

 in wet weather or at night. When alarmed they let them- 

 selves down by threads, either to the ground, or else (after 

 hanging in the air till the alarm is past) they go up again by 

 their threads to the tree. When full-grown, which is about the 

 middle of the summer, they scatter themselves separately, and 

 do not go down into the ground to turn to chrysalids, but spin 

 cocoons anywhere in reach of their food-trees, as on leaves, or 

 in hedges, beneath the bars of railings, under roofs of sheds, or 

 even on the top of walls, where each caterpihar spins a silken 

 cocoon, mixed with sulphur-coloured or white powder and with 

 hairs from the skin woven into it, and from the brown chrysalis 

 in this cocoon the moth comes out towards the latter part of 

 summer. 



The figure (p. 292) shows the shape and size of the Lackey 

 Moth. The colouring is excessively variable, but the fore 

 wings may be described as of some shade of rusty-fox, 

 yellowish, or dark brown tint, with two transverse bars, these 

 being sometimes of a pale tint on a darkish ground, or some- 

 times, on the contrary, the ground colour is the paler, and the 

 bars dark ; and in one specimen before me there is a transverse 

 band between the two bars, of a deeper colour than that of the 

 rest of the wings. The hinder wings are also of some tint of 

 brownish colour. 



It is stated that the moths, and especially the females, for 

 the most part remain concealed by day under leaves and in 

 long grass, and come out at night. 



The caterpillars seldom do the enormous quantity of mis- 

 chief with us that they are noted as causing in France, where, 

 according to the old law, it was compulsory on proprietors to 

 have the webs on the shoots cut off with shears and destroyed, 

 in consequence of the ravages of the caterpillars (if left 

 unchecked) ruining the Apple-leafage over an extent of miles 

 of country ; nevertheless their attacks are often the cause of 

 much loss in this country, and need attention. 



Prevention and Eemedies. — Some good may be done by 

 looking for the rings of eggs on the shoots, cutting these off 

 and' destroying them ; also by destroying any yellow silken 

 cocoons that may be found about the trees, or near them, but 



