FROSTED ORANGE MOTH. 119 



Burdock, Mullein, Thistles, Foxglove, and sometimes witliiu Potato- 

 stems. In these last, which are the only places in which I have 

 myself had the opportunity of observing the attack, it causes the com- 

 plete destruction of the infested stem. The caterpillar eats away a 

 considerable length of the soft inside tissues, so that presently the stem 

 breaks, or drops down above the injured part, and all this portion is 

 killed. 



As yet we have not been able to rear the moths from these Potato 

 stem caterpillars, but as they agree in points of appearance and 

 locality, and method and date of feeding, with those of the G. Jiavago, 

 it seems scarcely open to doubt that they are the grubs of this some- 

 time troublesome kind. 



One of the samples of infested Potato haulm was sent me from 

 Melton Mowbray on June 15tli ; this was merely accompanied by 

 enquiry as to the nature of the attack.''' 



A much more detailed observation was sent me on the same day 

 by Mr. D. Taylor, junr., of Daleally, Errol, N.B., with specimens 

 accompanying. In this instance the Potato stem was badly eaten 

 away within. Mr. Taylor wrote as follows: — "After writing last 

 night, I happened to go past the garden of my foreman, and observed 

 a number of his Potato sliaws drooping as if they had been cut or 

 broken. We cut them over below the drooping part, opened one or 

 two of the stalks up, and found the cause of the sickness to be a worm 

 of some sort, which had entered by eating a small hole, and feeding its 

 way up or down the inside of the stalk ; and in one case, as you will 

 see, the leaf stalk is affected." . . . " This is surely anew Potato 

 pest ? I have never seen Potatoes fallen in this manner, and it is only 

 one side of the garden that is as yet affected." 



The caterpillar is soft, cylindrical, and may be generally described 

 as of a kind of putty colour, varied with a good deal of pinkish on the 

 back, and the segment behind the head and the tail segment black, or 

 with the horny plate on the upper part of each black or dingy brown. 

 The body is rather attenuated at each extremity, with a number of 

 brown or black dots, each bearing a bristle. The head yellowish 

 brown, and rather smaller than the next segment. 



These caterpillars are stated by the late Edward Newman (who 

 gives in his ' British Moths,' pp. 279 and 280, the best account of this 

 infestation with which I am acquainted) to be found full-fed in the 

 stems of the tall Marsh Thistles, in which he specially observed them, 

 early in July. "When about to change it prepares a means of escape 

 by gnawing away the substance of the Thistle stem, leaving only the 



• See reply to enquiry in ' Agricultural Gazette,' number for June 20th, 1892, 

 p. 577. 



