GOAT MOTH. 293 



fimber. Infested trees may be easily recognised by the bad 

 odour due to the caterpillars, and by the wood-chips thrown 

 out from their borings, which are of various sizes up to the 

 thickness of a man's finger. 



d. Pro/eclit'e Utiles. 

 As for Sesia. Bats, owls, and goat-suckers attack the moths. 

 Saplings which have been attacked should be felled, split, 

 and burned with the caterpillars they contain. 



2. Cossiis aesculi, L. {Wood-leopard Moth), 

 a. Descriplion. 

 Moth with a spread of wings of 45 — 50 mm. {3 ), 55 — 65 

 mm. ( $ ) ; white with numerous round steel-blue spots on the 

 wings and six on the thorax ; abdomen long, deep blue with 

 white rings. Larva naked, yellow with black warts and dorsal 

 shield, l()-legged. Pupa with rings of spines. 



//. Life-hhtorij, clc 



The eggs are laid singly on saplings or branches of broad- 

 leaved trees. The larva emerges in August, bores into the 

 sap wood in the first year, passes the winter in the stem, and 

 in the second summer excavates a gallery running upwards 

 along the middle of the wood. In this it passes the second 

 winter, eventually pupating under the bark. Generation bien- 

 nial. It attacks many species of trees, maple, ash, lime, 

 apple, birch, beech, oak, horse-chestnut, elm, poplars and 

 willows, and has even been found in mistletoe. 



It is widely distributed, though rarely very abundant; 

 sometimes it is rather common and injurious in the neigh- 

 bourhood of large towns such as London. 



Treatment consists in the cutting and burning of the infested 

 stems and branches. 



Family III. — Bombycidae. 



Description of Famdy. 

 Antennae short, pectinate in both sexes (simply pectinate 

 in 2 , doubly in J ) ; ocelli usually absent. Proboscis small 



