SMALL ERMINE BIOTH. 15 



must be taken with each new crop to ascertain the strength that can 

 he home hij the leafage, and this equally applies to all applications to 

 live hark. 



This point of testing the strength that can be borne by different 

 kinds of leafage and by leafage in different conditions is exceedingly 

 important, and so also is the matter of the soft-soap and the mineral 

 oil being so thoronghly incorporated that they will not separate. If they 

 do, the mineral oil will be sure to cause much injury to the leafage on 

 which it may fall without being diluted by the soft-soap mixture. 



Note. — Besides the above-mentioned attacks, inquiries or com- 

 munications were received regarding almost all the commonly injurious 

 Apple infestations, as, for instance, the American Blight, tichizoneiira 

 lanigera ; Apple Aphis, or Green Fly, Aphis mali ; Apple Mussel Scale, 

 Mytilaspis j^omorum ; Apple-suckers, Fsylla mali. Also the Apple- 

 blossom Weevil, Anthonomus pomorum, and the Clay-coloured Weevil, 

 OtiorhyticJnts picipes, which was unusually troublesome, and is noted 

 under the heading of "Hops." The Codlin Moth, Carpocapsa pomonella, 

 was, almost as matter of course, present. In fact, with the exception 

 of the Apple Sawfly, Hoplocanipa testudinea, almost all the ordinary 

 infestations were noticeable ; but as they have all been entered on in 

 detail before in previous Annual Eeports, or in my ' Handbook of 

 Orchard and Bush-fruit Insects,' * it has seemed unnecessary to 

 allude to them again, excepting a few words about the two following 

 occasional infestations. 



The great caterpillars of the Lappet Moth, Gastropacha qiierci- 

 folia, which have been very rarely reported as injurious to orchard 

 leafage, appeared again in May on Apple, and in a new locality, near 

 Winchcombe, in Gloucestershire. These caterpillars are easily ob- 

 servable by their great size, being as much as upwards of four inches 

 long. The colour is greyish or brownish, with a row of more or less 

 observable markings down the middle of the back, these marks being 

 sometimes of a dark V-shape. The caterpillars are fleshy, cylindrical, 

 somewhat hairy, with a row of fleshy protuberances along each side 

 just above the feet, to which the name of "lappets " has been given. 

 The cocoon in which the change to chrysalis takes place is spun in 

 any convenient shelter, and from these the moths, which are of a rich 

 brown ground colour, and may vary in size (in male and female 

 respectively) from two to three and a quarter inches, may come out 

 from May to August. 



• London : Simpkin, Marshall & Co. 1898. Price 3s. 6d. 



