200 THE WOODLANDS. 



Our best authority thus writes : " Sometimes the 

 same leaf will be mined by two or three species, each 

 of which imparts to the leaf a mark, recognisable by 

 the initiated, indicating what species has fed on the 

 leaf long after the larva has itself departed. A mined 

 leaf is hence inscribed with hieroglyphic characters, 

 and the key wherewith to decipher these is obtainable 

 by patient and continued observation. 



" Bramble-leaves may frequently be found with two 

 different kinds of mines ; in one, the leaf remains 

 perfectly flat, and a long, slender, serpentine gallery 

 winds its way across the leaf, and generally attains a 

 length of from two to three inches. This mine, 

 which is scarcely visible whilst the larva is still at 

 work, the discoloration being then so slight, becomes 

 very conspicuous after it has been long deserted, the 

 dry, loosened upper skin eventually becoming almost 

 white, and contrasting strongly with the dark green 

 colour of the leaf. The creature that makes this 

 mine is a small, pale umber, semi-transparent larva, 

 with no real legs, and when full fed it crawls out of 

 its mine, and proceeds to some convenient corner, in 

 which it spins a small, flat, brownish-green silken 

 cocoon, from which, at the end of two or three 

 weeks, there emerges a brilliant little moth, 1 about a 

 quarter of an inch in expanse of the wings, of which 

 the fore-wings are of a rich golden brown, tinged 

 with purple beyond the middle, and with a nearly 

 straight, pale, golden band beyond the middle." 



One of the Tineina, called the "Apple-tree Moth," 2 

 attacks apple-trees and hawthorns in spring. The 



1 Nepticula aurella. 2 Hyponomeuta pCideUus. 



