132 TREE WOUNDS AND DISEASES 



of the above tiny moth. It usually attacks 

 young trees, say, from five to twenty years 

 old, and although it may not kill them out- 

 right, yet the repeated onslaughts year after 

 year tend to keep the trees in an unhealthy 

 condition, and so render them liable to other 

 and more deadly diseases. 



Unfortunately, the attacks of the larch 

 miner are by no means confined, as is usually 

 supposed, to trees growing under unfavourable 

 conditions, for we have during the past season 

 noticed, in an unusually healthy, fast-growing 

 plantation in Sussex, that almost every tree was 

 more or less affected. Certainly in another 

 large extent of larch in Gloucestershire which 

 was examined a short time ago, and where 

 nine-tenths of the trees were being ruined by 

 the Peziza, the larch miner was very abundant ; 

 but it is probable that young trees, whatever 

 be the state of health, suffer alike, although, 

 where hard-wooded species form a portion of 

 the crop, the larch certainly suffers less than 

 when grown in pure woods. The moth lays 

 its eggs at the end of June on the needles of 

 the larch ; the caterpillar, mining into and 



