426 OBSERVATIONS ON BLIGHT. 



colour, with jet-black spots, but varies, some specimens having 

 a pure white ground.'' Last year our hedges about Farncomb 

 were swarming with them. 



A larger moth, with a yellow tail and snow-white body and 

 wings, is also very destructive to white-thorn hedges ; but its 

 proceedings have already been so accurately told, that I will 

 not repeat them. This moth is appropriately called the 

 "yellow-tail."'' A kind very similar in its ways to the little 

 ermine-moth inhabits the oaks, and sometimes in such swarms 

 as to consume every leaf, and encase all the twigs in a conti- 

 nuous web for hundreds of acres : I have noticed this 

 in Surrey and Sussex on three occasions, and once in part of 

 Shropshire and Herefordshire. In the July of 1831 the 

 oak-woods about Downton, the residence of Mr. Knight, the 

 celebrated horticulturist, were as completely bare as on 

 Christmas-day, and had a most unnatural appearance; the 

 season was rather late, and the moth was then in the chrysalis, 

 as I ascertained by climbing up some of the trees and shaking 

 down whole showers of them. Early in the year the cater- 

 pillars may be seen, when the sun is warm, hanging by their 

 little threads from all parts of almost every oak-tree, swinging 

 to and fro with the least breath of air, like a lot of pendulums, 

 each varying in time according to the length of its thread, 

 which acts as the rod, and each occasionally giving itself a 

 twirl like a slack-rope dancer, in the overflowing joy and 

 happiness of its little heart. Each turns to a black chrysalis ; 

 and in ten days afterwards to a beautiful — yes, exceedingly 

 beautiful, pea-green, bell-shaped little moth,*^ but too common 

 to be valued for its beauty. When the moth is on the wing the 

 oaks again clothe themselves with all the fresh green of spring, 

 and the woods once more throw off their wintry looks. 



The Lackey-moth,'* another web-maker, is a great nuisance 

 in our gardens, though but little known in our woods and 

 forests. Our apple and pear-trees in this neighbourhood are 

 webbed by it every year ; the eggs are glued together into a 

 ring round a twig, and if the twig be cut off, and the eggs 

 killed by steeping in strong brine, may be kept for years with- 

 out injury; in a natural state they hatch in May, and begin 



" Yponomeuta padella. — Ed. ^ Porthesia chrysorrhcea. — Ed. 



•^ Tnrlrix vhidana.—T^n. '' Cli.iioranipa ncnsfrhi. — Ed. 



