Eudemis neevana, Hb., the Holly Tortrix Moth. 167 
it becomes easy to recognise the infested buds, not only because the pellets 
of frass are more in evidence, but because the rolling of the leaves becomes 
apparent. ? 
On dissecting the buds by removing one leaf after another, one finds that 
the outer leaves have been gnawed on their inner surface, apex, and edges, 
and there are accumulations of frass. As the bud opens the caterpillar 
shifts its feeding-ground inwards, so that the most severe damage and the 
heaviest accumulations of frass are not on the outermost leaves, which 
remain healthy enough to perform their normal service to the tree. 
Proceeding inwards in the examination of the bud one finds adhesions of a 
silky secretion that attach the inner surface of outer leaves to the outer 
surface and edges of inner leaves. Lastly, a very young leaf is reached 
enclosing the conical apex of the shoot. Within this young leaf the larva, 
about to moult for the second time, ensconces itself, spinning the edges of 
the leaf together so as to keep the leaf rolled. In the tube so formed the 
moult takes place. The larva at this stage is 5 mm. in length. 
After the second moult there is a considerable change in the appearance 
of the caterpillar. The body, hitherto yellowish, has now assumed a dingy 
green colour. On the prothorax is a black horny plate, and the thoracic legs 
are black. The caterpillar henceforth does a great deal of spinning, and 
lives and eats in the rolled-up inner leaves of the bud, round which the 
more external leaves are webbed together to form a closed envelope. When 
disturbed, the caterpillar can move forwards or backwards with equal ease 
and rapidity, and if ousted from its dwelling will let itself down by a thread 
to a lower branch and spin up in another retreat. This it does very rapidly, 
moving its head from side to side, fastening the thread as it issues from the 
spinneret now to one leaf-edge, now to another. In this way tissues or 
sheets of the webbing are formed. I have several times watched a larva 
feeding and weaving simultaneously. This was the case when the field of 
operation was the inner (upper) face of a leaf, for the tissues of the inner 
leaf surface are greatly preferred to those of the back of the leaf. Hach 
time the caterpillar brought its head to the leaf to fasten the thread, it took 
a bite from the surface. Obviously this habit tends to roll the leaf, for the 
young leaf thus becomes stripped of its upper surface, whereas the tissues 
of the under-surface continue to grow. However a leaf will roll under the 
influence of the caterpillar, whether it be gnawed or not. A larva about four 
weeks old was transferred from the bud which had hitherto sheltered it, to 
an uninfested bud. It stood on the lower surface of a fully expanded 
but still young and soft leaf, and began at once to weave from the edge of 
the leaf to the mid-rib. In three hours the half leaf had rolled backwards, 
