Apple, or Codling, Moth. 237 



anterior segments is furnished with a pair of legs ; there are 

 also two small fleshy tubercles on each of the 6th, 7th, 8th, 

 .and 9th segments, as well as a pair of feet at the extremity of 

 the body. This description was made when the larva had for 

 some time quitted the fruit. In its early state, it is of a dirty 

 reddish, or flesh, colour. After quitting the fruit, my larva crept 

 to the top of the box in which it was confined, and spun for 

 itself a thin but close web, of a darkish-coloured silk {Jig 34. 

 c), in which it remained all the winter, and for several of the 

 early months of the following year, without assuming the chry- 

 salis state. Reaumur, however, states that larvae which he 

 placed in glass cases for observation immediately quitted the 

 apples, and aflixed themselves in an angle at the top, where a 

 paper covering was placed, from which the majority of the 

 specimens gnawed small particles, with which they strengthened 

 the outside of their web. This sagacious writer conjectured 

 that, in a state of nature, they form their cocoons " sous les 

 ecorces d'arbres qui ont commence a se detacher du tronc;" 

 and Rusticus tells us that the caterpillar wanders about on the 

 ground till it finds the stem of a tree, up which it climbs, and 

 hides itself in some little crack of the bark. The fall of the 

 apple, the exit of the grub, and its wandering to this place of 

 safety, usually take place in the nighttime. In this situa- 

 tion it remains without stirring for a day or two, as if to 

 rest itself after the uncommon fatigue of a two yards' march ; it 

 then gnaws away the bark a little, in order to get further in, 

 out of the way of observation (this explains why Reaumur's 

 confined caterpillars gnawed the paper) ; and having made a 

 smooth chamber, big enough for its wants, it spins a beautiful 

 little milk-white silken case, in which, after a few weeks, it 

 becomes a chrysalis; and m this state it remains throughout the 

 winter, and until the following June ; when it is upon the 

 wing, and hovering round the young apples on a midsummer 

 evening. {E71L Mag., i. p. 146.) 



My specimens did not appear in the winged state until July, 

 in the following year; and Reaumur says that his specimens 

 assumed the perfect state on the 15th of August, having been 

 only a month from the time of their quitting the apples. The 

 chrysalis {Jig. S^. d, magnified, after the escape of the insect,) 

 is of a pale brown, with the dorsal surface of the abdominal 

 segments armed with two transverse rows of fine teeth, like 

 those of the chrysalis of the rose moth, which are employed in 

 extricating itself from the cocoon. 



The moth itself {Jig. 34. e, of the natural size; and^ mag- 

 nified) is a very beautiful insect, about three quarters of an 

 inch in expanse, and of which the following is the description : 

 — Anterior wings ashy-brown, with very numerous, rather 



