236 COMMON BRITISH INSECTS. 



The female, though really the more important of 



the two, is seldom noticed. Her wings are mere 



rudiments, and she is unable 



*9|BBfe^^tf^^H^^ to fly. She only appears at 

 night, when she crawls up the 

 stems of trees for the purpose 

 of depositing her eggs upon 

 them. When the little cater- 

 pillars are hatched, they make their way to the un- 

 opened buds and burrow into them, thus at the same 

 time concealing themselves from sight, and doing all 

 the harm of which so tiny a creature is capable. It is 

 in search of these caterpillars that the small birds, 

 more especially the bullfinch and chaffinch, pick off 

 and devour the buds of fruit-trees. It is true that 

 they do not restrict themselves to those buds which 

 contain caterpillars, but that they act rather at ran- 

 dom, picking off a bud first, and afterwards looking 

 to see whether or not it contains a caterpillar. Still, 

 the good that they do very much counterbalances the 

 harm, and the little birds should be allowed to have 

 their own way with the fruit-trees. The late Mr. 

 Waterton would never allow a single little bird ever 

 to be scared from his trees, much less killed, and I 

 never saw anywhere better prospects of heavy crops. 



Various plans have been tried to exterminate 

 these mischievous caterpillars. Being silk-spinners, 

 they lower themselves by their threads when alarmed, 

 and, by taking advantage of this habit, the gardener 

 can kill great numbers of the larvae by simply tapping 

 the boughs so as to frighten the caterpillars from 

 their food. But ' prevention is better than cure/ and, 



