122 



INSECTS. 



the flower-heads, feeding on the seeds and blossoms. When about to enter the 

 pupal state, the larva bores its way into the centre of the food-plant, gnaws out 

 a suitable chamber, closes the entrance with a little door of silk, and remains 

 safe from the attacks of insidious insect foes. In the same illustration is figured 

 Hyponomeuta malinella, a familiar moth during June and July in English apple- 

 orchards. The satiny white fore-wings, with three longitudinal rows of black dots, 

 render it a beautiful and conspicuous object as it rests on the apple-tree by day, or 

 flies to and fro beneath the trees as the evening draws on. The female lays her 

 eggs in an elongated cluster on an apple-twig, and the presence of the larvae first 

 becomes apparent owing to the silky gauze net with which the tiny larvae spin the 

 leaves together, enlarging their domicile as occasion requires. When full fed, 

 they pupate also in the web, so that numbers of tiny pupae nestle side by side 

 where the larvae were wont to feed. When alarmed, the caterpillars drop to the 

 ground suspended by a thread, crawling actively away amongst the grass. 



Another family is typified by the genus Coleophora, which embraces about 

 seventy species of small moths, characterised by their long narrow wings, margined 



with long delicate fringes, the first joint of the 

 antennae often bearing a tuft of hair. The larvae 

 live in little cases, in which they pass the winter, 

 turning to the pupa in the spring. As an example 

 of the genus, we figure the larch-mining moth (C. 

 larcinella), which is a dull-coloured moth, whose 

 larvae eat their way into the needles at the tip of 

 young larch-trees, the needles attacked, and indeed 

 often the whole bunch, turning yellow and wither- 

 ing. The caterpillar is full fed towards the end 

 of May, when it spins its little case fast to a 

 larch-needle, and turns to a pupa within. A few 

 weeks later the moth emerges at the hinder end 

 of the case. Finally, we have the beautiful plume- 

 moths (Pterophoridce), of which the common 

 species (Pteropliorus pentadactylus) is figured 

 in the illustration on p. 121. Throughout the 

 family the larvae are hairy, and when full fed 



suspend themselves by their anal claspers, turning to pupae without any covering. 

 The pupae themselves are often hairy also, though many of them are quite smooth. 

 The plume-moths, as a family, may be recognised by their feathery wings, slender 

 bodies, and long spinous legs. 



F. 0. PICKARD-CAMBRIDGE. 



LARCH MINING-MOTH. 



