16 APPLE. 



The caterpillars appear to winter in partly-grown condition ex- 

 tended along a twig of their food-plant, and as they attain maturity 

 are excessively destructive, clearing the leaves wholly away down to 

 the very footstalk. 



The best remedy is hand-picking. 



The caterpillars of the "Eyed Hawk Moth," Smennthus ocellatus, 

 are of a green ground colour, with the skin rough, dotted with white, 

 and having seven white stripes slanting backwards at the top on each 

 side, the seventh stripe being continued up the horn-like process at 

 the tail extremity of the caterpillar, which is pink whilst the caterpillar 

 is young, and afterwards changes to pale or sky blue, with a greenish 

 or black tip. These are sometimes three inches or more in length. 



The caterpillars are at times exceedingly destructive to Apple 

 leafage, and when full-fed turn to a red brown chrysalis a little below 

 the surface of the ground, from which the large and handsome moth 

 (which is of a rosy brown or ash colour on the fore wings, and has a 

 large eye-like spot in the centre of the hinder wings) comes out during 

 the following summer. 



The best remedial measures are hand-picking, or jarring down the 

 caterpillars, or skimming off the surface soil with the contained chry- 

 salids during the winter. 



This attack will be found entered on in detail in my Eighteenth 

 and Nineteenth Annual Keports ; and that of the Lappet Moth in my 

 Seventeenth and Eighteenth Annual Reports, and also in my ' Hand- 

 book,' with life-size figures of the large moths and caterpillars. 



