CURRANT CLEARWIN(i MOTH. -45 



upper, and in some the lower part of the severed shoot was missing, I 

 could not tell precisely how long the entire tunnel might have heen, 

 hut it was very neatly and thoroughly cleared out, stopping abruptly 

 at either end, as figured from life, p. 43. In this tunnel I found 

 the larva lying, apparently hybernating, in several instances enve- 

 loped in a more or less perfectly spun covering. In one instance it 

 was lying in a fairly firm opaque coating of dirty coloured web, with a 

 deal of dark-brown frass at one end where the grub was lying, and 

 some at the other end. In another instance it was lying in what had 

 been its roughly spun opaque covering, until it was torn open in 

 slitting the shoot ; and in another I found the grub lying with some 

 rubbish or frass on one side, and a little web and frass at the 

 other end. 



The larva or grub was hardly half an inch long, pale or yellowish, 

 sixteen-footed (that is, with three pairs of claw-feet, four pairs of 

 sucker-feet beneath the body, and another pair beneath the tail), the 

 head palish chestnut, the jaws darker, and some chestnut marking on 

 the segment next the head, and also above the tail. These larvte 

 were presumably not quite full-grown, as the full length is given by 

 Buckler at three-quarters of an inch, and either from this, or from the 

 conditions of hybernation, the colour of my specimens, examined in 

 January, was rather lighter in the head and back of the following 

 segment than the brownish tint mentioned both by Saunders and 

 Buckton. 



As some writers have expressed doubt as to the method of entrance 

 of the caterpillar into the Currant-shoot, I examined very carefully, 

 and found no reason to doubt that the entrance was made at a bud, 

 and that the maggot worked its tunnel above and below this point. 

 The ends of the tunnel appeared (as a regular thing) to stop abruptly 

 without any entrance hole, and without difierence in width of tunnelling, 

 which might be expected to be the case if the larva entered when 

 recently hatched and worked its way onward from one end. In regard 

 to this point my correspondents wrote, " We have examined the shoots 

 again, and the hole seems in every case to have been in the bud." 

 My specimens developed by the chrysalis pushing through the aperture 

 left for its egress, as on June 20th I found two pupa-cases fallen down, 

 and another still attached to the Currant- stem. Figures of one of 

 these are given, life size and magnified, at p. 43. 



The little moth is scarcely more than an inch in the spread of the 

 front wings ; the body and fore body black with some narrow yellow 

 lines ; the wings are transparent, whence the name of " Clearwing," 

 and bordered with black, the fore wings having also a black bar across, 

 and the tip yellowish with black veins (see figure, p. 43). The moths 

 appear in June. 



