MARCH BIOTH. 335 



March Moth. Anisopteryx cescularia, Scliiff. 



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March Moth ; winged male, wingless female, and band of eggs. 



The " March Moth " is a common kind, and, as described 

 by its name, is to be found early in the year. In 1889 

 specimens of the wingless females, together with bands of 

 their down-embedded eggs, which they were then laying on 

 Plum twigs were sent me on the 29th of March. The moths 

 were about three-eighths of an inch long, brown or fawn- 

 colour above, shading to grey below, with darker head and 

 eyes, and dark pencil of hair at the end of the tail, and might 

 be generally described as thickly pear-shaped (the pencil of 

 hairs at the end of the tail answering to a broad, short fruit- 

 stalk — see figure). The hairs were long, the six legs very 

 long, and the moths, though sometimes quite quiet, were able 

 at pleasure to walk very rapidly ; one that I timed as to speed 

 walked the length of six inches in twenty-five seconds. The 

 wings were to all appearance totally absent, and the downy 

 coating of the moths very smooth and silky. 



The twigs were quite small (none of them as much as a 

 quarter of an inch across), and the bands of eggs which were 

 then laid (or being laid) varied from about a quarter to half 

 an inch in breadth at the widest part, but did not always 

 quite encircle the stem. They were deposited with beautiful 

 regularity, and showed to the naked eye as if laid in almost 

 precisely parallel rows along the twig, and were embedded in 

 down supplied by the parent moth from the pencil at the end 

 of her tail. In the largest band I counted twenty-nine rows, 

 and as each of these rows (as nearly as I could count or 

 estimate) was composed of upwards of eighteen of the bright, 

 shining eggs, the whole number in this ring would be well 

 over five hundred. 



The "looper" caterinllars which hatch from these eggs 

 are of a light or whitish or clouded green, with a white or 

 lighter line along the side, and (lower down) " a brighter and 

 more distinct pale line in the region of the spiracles." These 

 caterpillars feed on many kinds of trees, but are noted by 

 German observers as being particularly injurious to Plum 

 trees. When full-fed, they turn to chrysalids "in or on the 



