184 LEPIDOFlJliBA {HUjinaj. 



destructive. After the crop has been taken, it is a good plan to 

 turn a number of fowls on the land, as they devour these larvae 

 greedily. "Watering around plants where the grubs are plentiful 

 with paraffin emulsion has a good effect; but for wholesale 

 purposes there is nothing like a dry dressing of soot and lime. 



The PhisiadcB or Y-Moths include one destructive species — 

 namely, the Silvery Y (Plusia gamma) (fig. 84), which now and 

 then feeds upon turnips and clover. The larvse have only 

 two pairs of prologs in the middle of the body, and in P. 

 gamma are green in colour, with a white streak down the 



Fig. 84.— Silvery T-Moth (^Plvsia gamma). 

 1, Ova ; 2, larva ; 3, pupa ; 4, imago. (Curtis.) 



back and a yellow one on each side. The Plusiadse spin a 

 light silken cocoon (3). Among the Acronyatidm we find a 

 fruit pest, the Figure-of-eight Moth (Diloba cceruleocephala), 

 sometimes sufficiently abundant to damage the leafage of the 

 apple, but usually feeding on hawthorn. 



Geometrina. — The Geometers are characterised by the 

 peculiar mode of progress in their larvae, which have only 

 ten or fourteen legs ; the prolegs are never all developed. 

 Very few have twelve legs, fewer still are provided with 

 fourteen. They move in a series of " loops," arching the 



