LEAFAGE CATERPILLARS. 
Oak-leaf Roller Moth. Tortrix viridana, Linn. 
Mottled Umber Moth. AHybernia defoliaria, Linn. 
Winter Moth. Cheimatobia brumata, Linn. 
ToRTRIX VIRIDANA.—Oak-leaf Roller Moth and caterpillars, and rolled leaf. 
One of the worst insect attacks of the past season has been that of 
various kinds of caterpillars to leafage of forest and fruit trees. These 
were most particularly injurious in Oak woods, so completely de- 
vastating large areas by their ravages that the mischief was described 
by resident observers as ‘‘a wholesale stripping of the leaves’’; or, 
again, as if “fire had gone over the trees,” from their brown and 
scorched appearance; or, again, as in the Forest of Dean, that in 
many places ‘‘ trees might be counted by the hundred without a leaf 
on them.” But, besides damage to Oak-leafage, the caterpillar injury 
included serious mischief to Lime trees, in one instance to an avenue 
a mile long, as well as to Beeches, orchard fruit trees, and Hazel 
coppice, and bushes in the neighbourhood of infested trees, when the 
leafage of these was consumed. 
Injury was reported at various localities in Kent, Sussex, and 
Surrey, and it was noticeable near St. Albans. Ashby de la Zouch 
was the most northerly locality from which information was sent me ; 
it was bad in Oak woods near Alcester, in Warwickshire, and a perfect 
scourge in the Forest of Dean, in Gloucestershire. Bad attack also 
occurred near Taunton; and in the New Forest, Hampshire, and 
surrounding manors, ‘‘ hundreds of acres were stripped of every leaf.” 
The above besides lesser observations. 
The caterpillars causing the damage were of various kinds, but 
most notably the “looper” caterpillars of the Winter Moth, Cheimatobia 
brumata, and of the Mottled Umber Moth, Hybernia defoliaria, which 
