TEILOCHA FICICOLA. 45 



blunt spike pointing upwards above the tail. They do not 

 move about much, but are sluggish and stationary, and 

 when stretched out and merely standing on their sucker 

 feet the colouring and the lumps on the back make them 

 look much like twigs. Besides the harm they do to 

 the leafage, they seem partial to the sprouting buds, and 

 will clear them nearly entirely away, and they seem to 

 prefer destroying the leaves on one tree almost completely 

 before they go on to another that may stand near. In 

 a garden containing about thirty fig-trees seven were 

 found to be attacked, the remainder being free. They 

 feed up quickly, and are very hardy. When full fed the 

 caterpillar spins an oval case (Fig. 20, p. 44) round itself, 

 formed of white silk, which may be found either on the 

 tree or near the roots in the earth. The silk cocoons 

 are of the size of the one figured, and within these the 

 caterpillar throws off its skin and turns to a chrysalis, 

 from which in due time there comes out the little brown 

 and grey Fig Moth. 



These moths are about an inch in the spread of the 

 fore wings, which are palish grey, with a broad band of 

 brown along the hinder edge, and a small patch of brown 

 at the end of the wing, and also a brown line on a part 

 of the fore edge, which altogether give a pattern as of a 

 broad, pale grey, forked mark lying on a brown ground 

 towards the front of the wing. The hind wings are 

 chestnut-brown, the down on body chiefly greyish, the 

 eyes pitchy. 



The caterpillars watched by Mr. Bairstow in his 

 garden at Port Elizabeth turned to chrysalids from the 

 26th of June to the 10th of July, and the moths appeared 

 from them after only nine days. There are apparently 

 two broods during the year they are very prolific. 



Prevention and Remedy. 



Picking the caterpillars off by hand is considered the 

 best way to get rid of them whilst attack is going on. 

 Very few can be got rid of by trying to shake them from 



