THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 331 



3'cars been almost cleared of apples by lliis horrid little pest. 

 I have been disgusted to find again and again a splendid 

 promise of a crop, and befoie the season was over nine- 

 lenlhs of the fruit bored through and spoilt. I have thought 

 of various methods of eradicating or of mitigating the pest. 

 1 tried scraping and searching the bark of the trees for the 

 grubs, and dressing with Gishurst, &c. ; I also tried trenching 

 the earth beneath them, and exposing it to the hardest frosts, 

 and even removing it and rejilacing it with fresh ; but it was 

 of no use. This year 1 fully intended having some grand 

 field-days, or rather nights, against the moth itself, with lan- 

 tern and net, and " catch 'em alive ;" but unfortunately, at 

 the end of May, about the time of the moth's appearance, I 

 had to leave home, so notliing was done. Lately, accordingly, 

 1 began to find my small apples being bored, when I became 

 seized of an idea, which I impart for the benefit of your 

 readers. The moth lays an egg in the calyx of the apple, 

 just as it is forming from the blossom. This egg turns to a 

 very small grub about the time that the young apple is 

 formed. It sets to work and eats its way to the core, devours 

 or destroys the seed, out through the other side, and into 

 another ajiple, serves that the same, and, having done its 

 will with it, on to another, and so on, until tlie grub, being 

 full-fed and greatly increased in size, crawls out and bestows 

 itself somewhere, either in the earth or bark of the tree, to 

 become a moth and lay many eggs in due time. That the 

 grub passes from a))ple to apple is certain. Take two apples 

 off the same bunch, — you will find corresponding holes 

 touching each other in them, and all covered with dirty 

 brown exudation. Cut one up, and you will find the grub 

 lias pierced it entirely, and that it has left it; cut the other, 

 and you will find the puncture only as far as the core perhaps, 

 and then you will find the little grub. 1 have frequently seen 

 them just emerged from a hole, and working their way into a 

 fresh one in another apple. In the early part of June the 

 grub is as small round as a very fine pin or a moderate 

 needle. Later on, as we all know, he gels to be as big round 

 as a fat wheat-corn, but that is not until he has pierced many 

 apples. Now, this being the case, and that it is so 1 am 

 sure, my notion is this, and I am diligently acting on it : on 

 all the trees I can gel at I search very carefully, and every 



