54. CURRANTS. 
attack among the Red Currants, but I have not noticed it among 
Black before.” 
On the 18th Mr. Wise added :-— 
‘“‘T will send you some of the Incurvaria capitella which we are find- 
ing on our Black Currants. You will see what an enormous amount 
of damage they are doing us, as each bud contains a Currant blossom 
which is well formed, but which would not come to perfection.” 
On April 27th Mr. Wise forwarded me specimens, and I found the 
Black Currant shoots very much injured, in some instances the boring 
of the little grubs went down to the old wood of the shoots, and in 
others I found the grub (or caterpillar) dead within ; but two of these 
larve were still alive, one within a shoot, and the other straying 
about, and both, as customary with this grub for most of its lifetime, 
of a reddish colour. 
The first noticeable sign (in the spring of the year) of the presence 
of this attack, is the fading of the young shoots from the injuries 
caused by the gnawings of the little caterpillars within. In 1891 
Mr. Wise wrote me :—‘‘ About April 20th we noticed numbers of the 
young shoots of the Red Currant bushes had withered up and drooped. 
On examination we found in each a small grub, which had bored its 
way up the stem.”’ In 1892 Mr. Wise found the attack in the shoots 
of the Red Currant eleven days earlier, that is, on April 9th, when the 
shoots were still very small; and in the past season (1896) the attack 
was first reported on the 10th of the same month. 
The caterpillars are red; with three pairs of claw-feet, four pairs 
of sucker-feet, and one pair at the end of the tail; the head red, and 
the segment next to it with darker marks along the hinder edges. It 
is stated (see Stainton’s ‘Tineina’) to be greenish white when full 
fed; but in this state I have not myself seen it. The life-history (as 
we know it now from Dr. Chapman’s observations, joined to our 
previously incomplete knowledge) is that in the spring the partly- 
grown caterpillar comes out from the small white cocoon amongst the 
scales and rubbish at the base of the fruit spurs and buds of the 
Currant, in which it has passed the winter, and boring into the buds 
and the young shoots, in which it feeds on the pith, injures the shoots 
so that they fade away and die. 
These caterpillars turn into chrysalids, from which the moth 
appears at the end of May, and then, as discovered by Dr. Chapman, 
sit upon the Currant fruit, and by the aid of a “strong and powerful 
instrument,” penetrates the skin of the Currant fruit, and lays its eggs 
within. The larve feed, as recorded, one on the inside of one seed ; 
and towards the end of June, when most of the currants were still 
green, some which were prematurely showing the appearance of 
ripening were found to contain the little capitella grubs,—sometimes 
