INSECTS. 



by them, and the very surf of the lake assumed a more snowy whiteness, due to the 

 colour of the hosts of moths drowned in the waters. The woods seemed as 

 though visited by a violent snowstorm, so thickly were the insects massed in the 

 foliage. In 1852 whole forests were felled, in order if possible to be rid of the 

 pest. The trunks were searched for eggs, and every tree-trunk in an area of 

 fourteen thousand acres was examined. Often an ounce of eggs would be taken 

 from a single tree, and, at the computation of thirty thousand to the ounce, we 

 get, at one hundred trees per acre, upwards of thirty hundred million larvae at 

 work upon the trees in that area when the eggs hatched. Spotted woodpeckers, 

 finches of all kinds, the larva of a longicorn beetle, Clerus, all assisted in the work 

 of destruction. Yet, in spite of all this, it needed a hundred labourers with twenty 



foremen to carry out the destruction 

 of the young larvae hatched from 

 eggs which were overlooked in a 

 single acre of forest. The ground 

 too, after the season was over, was 

 white with the cocoons of countless 

 thousands of Ichnewmonidce, so that 

 millions of the larvae can never, from 

 the attacks of these alone, have 

 reached maturity. The pale tussock- 

 moth (Dasychira pudibunda) derives 

 its trivial name from the tufts or 

 tussocks of hair so noticeable a 

 feature in the hairy clothing of the 

 larvse. The fore-wings are grey with 

 a smoky transverse bar. The larva is 

 green with a transverse bar of velvet black between the segments from five to eight. 

 Each of these segments bears a thick squarely truncated tuft of upright yellow 

 hairs, and the last carries a long tail or brush of hair. The species is abundant in 

 England and all Europe. In the brown-tail moth (Porthesia chrysorrhoea) the 

 wings are snowy white, while the body is white with a brown tufted tail in the 

 male, which in the female is much larger. The hairs of the tuft are deposited upon 

 the eggs as a covering when laid by the female. The larva is short, thick, and 

 black, with four rows of spiny tubercles along the sides. It is common in Great 

 Britain and also on the Continent. Very similar to the last is the gold-tail 

 (Porthesia auriflua), but the front -wings are dotted with three or more black 

 spots, while the tuft at the extremity of the abdomen is formed of golden hairs 

 instead of brown. The larva has rows of tubercles along the sides, whence issue 

 numerous hair-like bristles. Each of the tubercles of the second row bears tufts of 

 white hair. The third row is bright red. A bright vermilion double stripe runs 

 along the back, while between the tenth and eleventh segments is a cup-like scarlet 

 protuberance. The satin-moth (Porthesia salicis) is another well-known member 

 of the family, taking its name from the white satiny wings; the antennae and 

 thorax being also white, and the body black, clothed with white hairs. The larva 

 feeds on the poplar, and is abundant in England and throughout Europe. 



satin moth {Porthesia salicis), with larvae and pupa. 



An ichneumon is depositing its eggs in one of the larvse, while 

 another is just emerging from the pupa. 



