RAVAGERS OF CROPS 265 



abundance in the great fruit-growing district of 

 Evesham. The moth, however, has a very wide 

 distribution, and is, unfortunately, all too common 

 during some seasons in most orchards. The 

 male moth is rather a pretty insect, with its 

 greyish or ochry-brown fore wings and pale 

 greyish-white hind wings. The female, on the 

 other hand, presents the most extraordinary 

 appearance, her abdomen being very large in 

 comparison to the fore part of her body. Her 

 legs are long and slender, and her wings are so 

 imperfectly developed as to appear more like 

 scales or abnormal outgrowths from the sides 

 of her distorted body. Flight for her is an im- 

 possibility, and courtship takes place upon the 

 ground, or on the tree-trunks. About the second 

 week in October the female Winter Moth comes 

 from her pupa-case beneath the tree, where she 

 has developed from the caterpillar that descended 

 into the soil in the summer, and ascends the 

 trunk to deposit her eggs upon the buds or 

 twigs, or in the chinks and crannies of the bark ; 

 and very shortly after the last egg has been 

 deposited she dies. The following spring the 

 caterpillars emerge from the eggs, and at once 

 begin their work of destruction, feeding upon 

 the buds, leaves, and flowers of the fruit trees, 

 until the trees, stripped of their foliage, look as 

 if some scorching, devastating blast had swept 

 over them. When full fed, the larvae either 

 crawl or let themselves down on the end of a 

 silken thread to the ground, where they enter the 

 soil to pupate ; though a certain percentage 

 appear to pupate under moss or loose bark 



