63 



Previous valuable observations had been made, however, by Muhlig, of 

 Frankfort on the Main {vide Kaltenbach's Die Pnanzenfeinde aus der 

 Klasse der Insekten, p. 781). During the past three years this insect 

 has been very destructive in parts of England, notably in Sussex and 

 Kent; observations have also been made in Gloucestershire and Mid- 

 dlesex, and I have seen it working among the fruit trees in Cam- 

 bridgeshire in 1889 and in Huntingdonshire on more than one occasion. 

 Since the attention of the fruit growers has been called to this pest it 

 has been noticed quite frequent! } 7 . The damage done by the larva is 

 very great, and as there is no known remedy, it is very important to 

 try and prevent its importation and to destroy it by drastic measures 

 when it makes its appearance in an orchard. Miss Ormerod states a 

 that "the attack appears to be very seldom noticed with us in con- 

 nection with apple injury." This is not the case; it has been fre- 

 quently noticed b} 7 growers, but the observations have not been 

 recorded by them. 



This pest can easily be detected by its workings and the symptoms 

 it produces; the red larva?, by tunneling into the buds and shoots (of all 

 classes), cause the former to die off soon after opening and the shoots 

 to at first flag, then wither up and eventually turn brown and die. In 

 the first series of observations I made on this pest 1 found the termi- 

 nal shoots only affected, b but, as pointed out to me by Mr. Bear, of 

 Hailsham, all shoots and buds suffer indiscriminately, and this has 

 been frequently observed during the past year. The dying off of the 

 young shoots has frequentl} 7 been attributed by growers to canker 

 (Nectria ditissima), which 1 have seen to produce very similar symp- 

 toms. But by breaking open the bud or dead shoot, the true cause is 

 soon seen by the presence of the small, red caterpillar or its brown 

 pupa near the apex of the bud or shoot. So far I have found this 

 insect only on dwarf trees, and reports sent me are all to the same 

 effect. Twelve-year-old trees are the oldest I have at present detected 

 these pests on. The fact that it is mainly on young .stock has given 

 rise to the idea in England that it has been imported. This is not so, 

 for it not only occurs on the apple but is mentioned b} 7 Stainton c as 

 being "not scarce in June on white thorn." Herr Muhlig also sa} 7 s 

 that "the caterpillars live in the same way on the allied white thorn, 

 which they more especially infest in this neighborhood (Aix la Cha- 

 pelle)." Stainton seemed to doubt that the same species occurs on 

 the whitethorn and the apple, for he sa} 7 s: "The dark variety appears 

 exclusively attached to the apple; it is possible it ma<y be a distinct 

 species." I have found during the past year that those bred from the 

 apple vary from the dark form mentioned by Stainton to the typical 



« Handbook of Orchard and Bush-Fruit Insects, p. 278. 1898. 

 & First Report on Economic Zoology, p. 68, 1903. 

 ^Lepidoptera Tineina, pp. 239 and 240. 



