Carpenter — A Neto Species of Tortrixfrom Tuam. 93 



from which spring blackish hairs. Its length is 11 or 12 mm. The 

 head and the posterior part of the last abdominal segment are 

 yellowish-brown, marked with black. 



Pupa (fig. 4). — The pupa is brownish-black. Each of the 

 abdominal segments (except the first and the last) is provided with 

 two half-rings of spines, by means of which the pupa can move in 

 its cocoon (fig. 6). 



Habitat. — Tuam, Co. Galway, Ireland. 



Ti7ne of appearance. —Larva : April to July. Pupa : June and 

 July. Imago : July and August. 



Food-plants. — Scotch Fir and Larch. 



Habits. — The larva feeds on the pine-shoots, which it seems to 

 almost divest of their leaves (fig. 5). Mr. Donelan writes : " The 

 caterpillar appears in two or three different ways. It fastens 

 together two shoots, and forms a nest of web (see fig. 5) ; when dis- 

 turbed, it creeps out at the top, and, falling to the ground, tries to 

 hide in the heath, &c. ; or some of the pine leaves are fastened 

 together on a single shoot, and the nest of web is formed within. 

 Sometimes a few of the caterpillars are found on the shoots with- 

 out any covering ; this generally happens later in the season than 

 the former." The cocoon in which the pupa is contained appears to 

 be formed by the closing up of the web in which the larva had shel- 

 tered. The cocoon is surrounded by a mass of scale-leaves (fig. 6). 



It seems very strange that this apparently unnoticed insect 

 should have made its appearance in such numbers as to force 

 attention by its damage to plantations. Mr. Donelan, who has 

 had considerable experience of pine-woods, says it is the worst 

 pest he has seen in Ireland. Equally strange is its occurrence 

 in such a remote district of the British Isles as Co. Gralway. 



Mr. Donelan tells me that the young trees on which the larvae 

 were found came from Scotland, and may have been originally 

 imported from the Continent. Hence, if the identification of 

 T. donelana with Herrich-Schaffer's figure be correct, we may have 

 here an insect so rare on the Continent as to have escaped obser- 

 vation as a pine-feeder (no mention whatever is made of it in 

 Kaltenbach's " Pflanzenf einde " or Eatzeburg's "Eorst-Insekten"), 

 but which, imported to the West of Ireland, found there so favour- 

 able an environment as to become a dominant member of the 

 insect fauna. The fact that all the modern fir-trees of Ireland 



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