ENTOMOLOGICAL MAGAZINE. 



OCTOBER, 1833. 



Art. L. Observations on Blight. By Rusticus, 

 of Godalming. 



[Epistle V. and last.] 



Who has not noticed the white-thorn hedges stripped of 

 their leaves, and the twigs matted together with a web ? and 

 who has not heard the appearance attributed to east-wind and 

 to bhght ? The bhght is nothing more than the caterpillar of 

 a small moth, which lays its eggs on the twigs the year before. 

 When these eggs first burst the shell, the little caterpillars, 

 which come out of them, spin themselves a nice silken house, 

 taking care to enclose two or three leaves ; as soon as these 

 leaves are devoured, for which purpose they are inclosed, the 

 house is enlarged, and made to include other leaves ; these, in 

 turn, are devoured, and others inclosed, till a mass of web is 

 formed as big as one's hand. These masses are often so 

 abundant as to touch one another; and the whole hedge 

 looks as though it were dead, not a leaf being visible. The 

 caterpillar is a little blue-black fellow, with a row of jet-black 

 spots down each side ; and when you hunt him out of his web, 

 he wriggles away backwards and drops, spinning a thread as he 

 falls, by which he hangs with all the ease of a spider ; but 

 there is this difference, the caterpillar spins his thread from his 

 mouth, the spider from his tail. When full fed, the caterpillars 

 fasten themselves by their hind legs to a part of their web, 

 and, hanging with the head downwards, turn into chrysalises, 

 — I have often found dozens hanging together in a line like 

 rabbits on a pole. At the end of June the moth appears : it 

 is a pretty little creature, having wings of a leaden ground- 



NO. v. VOL. I. 3 I 



