222 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



only about half the thickness of the larger moth and slightly darker in 

 colour. 



The moths are seldom to be seen flying during the day. So far as my 

 experience goes, the only occasion on which they appear during daylight 

 is when a bed is being disturbed in getting up daffodils for harvesting, 

 and the moths have been reposing on the earth, and endeavour to escape. 

 They come out, however, towards dusk, and may then be seen flying over 

 the garden with their peculiar zigzag motions. Their active operations 

 seem confined to a couple of hours before and after sunset. 



The long period over which the swift moths hatch out makes it rather 

 difficult to devise methods for resisting the attack or for destroying the 

 enemy. I will, however, mention the methods I have myself tried in the 

 hope that others may be able to suggest more effective means of preventing 

 or escaping from the evil. 



From the time when the caterpillar begins to approach the surface for 

 the purpose of spinning its cocoon until the time when the motli hatches 

 out from the chrysalis, that is to say, from the middle of April till the 

 beginning of June, the insect is close beneath the surface, and may be 

 sought for in the ground and destroyed. For this means to be at all 

 effective the whole of the beds must be very carefully gone over and the 

 soil moved and scrutinized to the depth of six inches and the operation 

 repeated at intervals of ten days or a fortnight — a method obviously im- 

 practicable in the ordinary border. 



It is also possible, though difficult, to catch the moths themselves when 

 flying in the dusk, but these are generally males. I fear neither method 

 will do more than mitigate the evil. I am told the moth is not one of 

 those that can be caught by sugaring the stems of trees, or which is 

 attracted by a bright light. I have not found the method of searching 

 the ground for the females very successful. I have so found them only 

 by accident. 



It is an unfortunate coincidence that the time of the caterpillar's 

 greatest destructive activity is precisely that of the principal root-growth of 

 the daffodil — namely, from August till April — and during this period the 

 creature is at work so deep in the soil, that it cannot be sought for without 

 serious injury to the roots and bulbs we are trying to protect. I have tried 

 the plan of surrounding the bulbs with sharp, gritty substances, such as 

 fine charcoal and ground oyster- shell ; but this proved quite a failure, and 

 did not in any way prevent an attack. 



Then came vaporite apterite, killogrub, and similar remedies. It is 

 possible I may yet find an effectual way of using these substances, and I 

 am not prepared to say that they are wholly without effect— my gardener 

 thinks they do produce some result — but no method I have yet tried of 

 applying them can be said to provide a complete remedy for the evil in 

 the case of daffodils left in the ground and not lifted. In one small bed 

 which had vaporite dibbled in between the bulbs in the autumn and again 

 in the spring about one-half the plants were attacked, and I was able to 

 discover some ten or a dozen of the caterpillars or chrysalides in the 

 following May. 



If these substances produce their effect by means of a gas which they 

 give off, and which acts chiefly in an upward direction, it is easy to under- 



