128 



THE BOOK OF GARDENING. 



head, with two black spots in the vicinity. The body is striped 

 with blue, yellow, and white. It emerges in April. Hand-picking 

 is best for these conspicuous caterpillars, as they soon make their 

 presence known. The trees may also be shaken over a sticky 

 board, and the insects afterwards picked up and destroyed. With 

 hairy caterpillars it is a well-known fact that the gardener gets 

 very little help from the usual bird-dwellers. The chief 

 exception, so far as the writer knows, is in the case of the cuckoo, 

 which seems to have a particular relish for such hairy creatures. 



One other species of moth should also be mentioned, as its 

 food-plant is entirely the Rose. This is Cidaria fulvata^ another 

 very common species. The caterpillar emerges in April, but is 

 not readily seen, as its colour harmonises so well with its environ- 

 ment. In colour it is pale green, with greenish-grey lines upon 

 the back, and yellowish near the spiracles. Hand-picking is the 

 only remedy. 



Even more destructive than the moth caterpillars are those 

 of the Sawflies feeding upon the Rose. Those generally seen 

 feed exposed, though there is one species occasionally met with 

 i^Pamphiliiis i?ianitd) which encloses itself in a case fashioned 

 from its food-plant. 



There is a large number of the Sawfly Caterpillars, but amongst 

 the commonest and most destructive are Hvlotoma rosa (Fig. 63), 



Fig. 63. — Larv^ of Rose-leaf Sawfly. 



a bluish-green insect with a black head. The eggs are laid in 

 the Rose-twigs in a double row, each egg being deposited sepa- 

 rately. To add to the gardener's trouble, the insect is double- 

 brooded. When the larvae hatch out, they at once commence 



