236 Insects most injurious to Cultivators 



h 



the apple moth feeds during the greater part of its growth : 

 when, however, it has nearly attained its full size, it begins to 

 feed on the pips of the apple, which, thus attacked in its most 

 vital part, soon falls to the ground. The caterpillar, however, 

 has now ceased feeding : it has other operations to undergo ; and 

 no sooner is the apple fallen to the ground, than it quits the 

 fruit by the passage (Z) which it had previously gnawed, and 

 thus all traces of its steps are lost to the enquirer. A hundred 

 apples may be opened, and not more than two or three larvae 

 observed within them ; the orifice by which they have escaped 

 being open, and not concealed by a little mass of brown grains, 

 which is the case with those apples from which the larva has not 

 made its escape. These little grains are the excrement of the 

 larvae, which are also to be seen in the burrows formed by 

 them within the apple, and which are protruded through the 

 hole previously made in the circumference of the fruit, being 

 attached together by slender threads spun by the caterpillar. 

 When, therefore, the larva makes its escape, it clears away the 

 mass of dry excrementitious matter at the orifice of the burrow, 

 through which it escapes to the earth. Reaumur considers that 

 the attaching of the pellets of excrement together, and to the 

 sides of the fruit, by means of a thin web, has for its object the 

 removal of the annoyance which the larva would experience by 

 these little masses being loose, and striking against it every time 

 the apple was shaken by the wind. 



One of these larvae, whose proceedings I examined in 1836, 

 is represented of the natural size at Jig. 34. «, and highly mag- 

 nified at b. It is of a dirty white colour, with a brown head, 

 varied with darkish brown marks. The body is slightly hairy ; 

 the prothorax, or first segment after the head, is whitish, with 

 minute brown spots ; the other segments are of a pale colour, 

 with about eight small tubercles on each ; each of the three 



