146 FRUIT CULTURE. 



wavy, darker brown lines running across them. The hind 

 wings are greyish white, with two or three darker lines, 

 or almost without markings. The female has very small 

 and narrow wings that are useless for flight, so that they 

 have to climb the trees by the stems in order to lay their 

 eggs. Both male and female continue to make their 

 appearance from the end of September to the end of 

 December. The males may be disregarded, provided the 

 females are caught, and, together with their eggs, de- 

 stroyed. The latter is concerned only in the production 

 of eggs, which she lays, to the number of two hundred or 

 more, in the crevices of the bark, or on the spurs and 

 branches, at intervals till Christmas, according to the 

 weather. Egg-laying is done by night. After the end 

 of the year nothing is seen of the moth till the cater- 

 pillars appear in April and May on the expanding buds, 

 upon which they feed. As the leaves unfold the cater- 

 pillars make for themselves a shelter by binding a few 

 of them together, and here they reside while not feed- 

 ing. The earliest hatched individuals are full grown by 

 the end of May or early in June, and descend to the 

 ground by means of a thread. Here they bury them- 

 selves and construct a cocoon, in which they undergo 

 their transformations at a few inches below the surface. 

 Others follow the same course, and lay up in the soil 

 probably by the end of July, where they remain till 

 October. 



REMEDIES. One of the most effective plans is to inter- 

 cept or trap the females on their way up the trunks 

 of the trees, and so prevent the eggs from being laid 

 upon them. All undergrowth of gooseberries, currants, 

 or cobnuts, should be kept clear of the fruit trees 

 above, to prevent them being used as a means of ascent. 



