The Y Moth. 



209 



close round the trunk of the trees. A labourer gets up into 

 the tree and shakes the branches violently, while two others,, 

 having long poles with hooks at the ends, also shake the 

 branches within their reach. Other labourers sweep the 

 cloth with stiff carpet brooms, and shovel up the debris 

 together with the weevils into a sack. This must be done 

 rapidly, and before the weevils can fly away. 



Experiments have shown that it is necessary to perform 

 this operation two or three times on each tree, as the weevils 

 are not all shaken off at first. From a tree, for instance, 

 which at the first shaking nearly 1,000 weevils had fallen, 

 385 were shaken off five hours later, and 145 the next day. 

 In the orchard of the Ecole pratique d' Agriculture des Trois 

 Croix, near Rennes, with 347 apple-trees on eight acres, the 

 cost of treatment, which occupied three days, was only £ i 

 Nearly 450,000 weevils were destroyed, and there was a satis- 

 factory crop of apples. 



This operation must be carried out before the weevils lay 

 eggs, and in order to accomplish this it is necessary to watch 

 closely for their first appearance, and to begin with the: 

 earliest varieties of trees. 



This system of destroying the apple-blossom weevils 

 might advantageously be practised in Great Britain. It 

 would also be useful in the case of the attacks of other 

 insects, as the Winter Moth caterpillars, for example. 



It is, of course, most desirable that the apple-growers in a 

 district should combine and arrange to wage war in this 

 fashion simultaneousl)^', and with the same care and energy. 



There are several parasitic Hymenoptera which destroy 

 the larvae; and some kinds of birds, such as the robin, 

 tomtit, and chaffinch, and some species of linnets, devour 

 both larvae and weevils. It is believed that the tomtit and 

 chaffinch take the larvae from the buds. 



The Y Moth — [Plusia Gamma). 

 [See Coloured Plate.) 

 In some seasons the large prettily-marked caterpillars ot 

 this moth appear in great numbers and clear off whole fields 



o 



