248 
THE GARDENERS’ AND NATURALISTS’ CALENDAR FOR DECEMBER. 
about this time, leave their woodland haunts and visit 
the fruit-gardens and orchards in small companies, 
where they commit much damage even at this sea¬ 
son. The Larks {Alauda arvensis), are now congregated 
in large flocks, and are much on the wing travelling in 
search of food, which appears to consist, at this season, 
principally of any green stuff that is to he found, such 
as the leaves of turnips or cabbages, in pursuit of which 
they will often visit gardens in the close vicinity of 
dwellings. H. W. 
Entomology.- —The attention of the Entomologist 
and also of the Horticulturist, must now be devoted 
more to the preparatory than to the perfect state of 
many species of insects; although, even at this period 
of the year, not a few maybe found fully developed. 
It is true that many species are now, in the form of 
eggs, deposited by the parent insects, at the close of 
the past s umm er, or during the autumn, and these will 
not appear as larvae until the return of warmth in the 
ensuing spring, and it must be admitted, that the prac¬ 
tical gardener who would secure his fruit trees or flower¬ 
ing-shrubs from the future attacks of the larvae to be 
hatched from these eggs, has no easy task before him, 
from the care with which instinct, or more properly speak¬ 
ing, the God of Nature has endowed the parent moth, fly, 
or beetle to place its eggs in some place of concealment 
or other, or else to cover them over with some coating 
which renders them equally invisible, not only to the 
eye of the gardener, but also to the far more prying 
eyes of birds, who hunt the retreats selected by the 
parent insects with the greatest care, and yet often, as 
we subsequently find by experience, fail to discover 
their prey in this state. Some species, for this pur¬ 
pose, as well as with the apparent mew of enabling the 
animal, in its embryo state, to encounter and resist the 
diversities of the season, and protect them from the cold 
and wet of winter, cover their eggs with a clothing of 
different materials. Thus, the Satin Moth ( leucoma 
solids), common on Willows, wholly conceals her eggs 
with a white frothy substance, which, when dry, is in¬ 
soluble in water, and thus effectually defends them. A 
similar coating of a gummy material defends the very 
young larvae of the small Ermine Moth ( Yponomeuta 
padella ), which are hatched late in the autumn, through 
the winter beneath a circular patch of strong glutinous 
matter, about one-eighth of an inch in diameter, placed 
generally on the under surface of the young twigs, so 
that as soon as a congenial change takes place in the 
atmosphere, in the spring, the young hungry larvae are 
ready to make them appearance in swarms, and devour 
every young leaf which has appeared. {Lewis Trans. 
Ent. Soc., i, p. 21). Other moths, as the Golden-tail 
Moth ( Porthesia chrysorrhcea ), the Gypsy Moth (iZ//- 
j pogymna dispar ), and several others “ surround their 
eggs with an equally impervious and more singular 
clothing—hair stripped from their own bodies. With 
this material, which they pluck by means of their 
pincer-like ovipositor, they first form a soft couch on the 
surface of some leaf; they then place upon it succes¬ 
sively layers of eggs, and surround them with a similar 
downy coating, and when the whole number is de¬ 
posited cover the surface with a roof of hairs, which 
cannot be too much admired, for those used for the 
interior of the nest are placed without order, but those 
employed externally are arranged with as much art and 
skill as the tiles of a roof, and as effectually keep out 
the water, one layer resting partly on another, and all 
having the same direction, so that the whole resembles 
a well-brushed piece of shaggy cloth or fur.”— {Kirby 
and Spence, iii, p. 75.) Some species of Plant Lice— 
those pests of the gardener—are also enveloped in a 
white cottony down, detached from the belly of the 
parent aphis, by means of her long hind legs, each egg 
being separately coated with down. 
But if it be difficult for the gardener and even for 
Tom-tits, and other insectivorous birds to find these eggs, 
there are still plans by which the former may secure 
himself, in some degree, against the injury which will 
otherwise arise in the following spring, from the larvae 
which would be hatched from them. The most evident 
course to be adopted is to coat over the shoots of 
branches of trees infested during the preceding year 
with Caterpillars, with a solution of soap and other 
glutinous and oily materials, which will thus form an 
impenetrable barrier to the exit of the young larvae 
when hatched. In like manner, if the stems and 
branches of the trees are washed over with turpen¬ 
tine, or even with hot water, the eggs will be de¬ 
stroyed. 
At the present season great numbers of species of 
insects are to be found in the pupa or chrysalis state, it 
being another wise arrangement of Nature that during 
the period when the food of so many of these animals 
is not in existence, they should themselves be in one or 
other of those states of their lives when they do not 
require food. Hence, whilst very many of those 
species which undergo their transformations during the 
summer do not construct any cocoon, the great majo¬ 
rity of those which pass the winter in the pupa state 
cover themselves with an envelope of some material, 
which protects them from the weather just in the same 
way as the coating of the eggs which we have just 
described; in this latter case, however, the coating is 
formed'by an animal not for its own defence, whilst in 
the former case it is the animal itself which forms its 
own covering. It has been stated that probably nine- 
tenths of the extensive tribes of Butterflies and Moths, 
many Hymenoptera and insects of other orders, pass 
the winter in the pupa state. In placing these pupae 
in security from the too great cold of winter and the 
attacks of enemies, the larvae from which they are to 
be metamorphosed exhibit an anxiety and ingenuity 
evidently imparted to them for this express design. 
By far the larger number are concealed under leaves, in 
the crevices or in the trunks of trees, Ac., or are enclosed 
in cocoons of silk or other materials, and often buried 
deep under-ground out of the reach of frost. 
Among the few perfect insects to be found at this season 
we may mention some of the larger Ground Beetles {Cara- 
bus morbillosus , violaceus, Sc.), to be met with under stones 
and leaves in damp situations. As these are the gar¬ 
dener’s friends, feeding upon soft-skinned larvae, worms, 
and other insects, they must be carefully preserved as 
well as that ugly creature the Devil’s Coach-horse 
Staphylinus (Goerius) olens, the dread of school-boys, 
from the fierce manner in which it throws up its tail 
and opens wide its powerful jaws. Many of the 
smaller Ground Beetles (Bembidiidae) are also to be met 
with on grassy banks and similar situations, as well as 
various beetles which live in rotten wood and under 
bark, and in fungi and boleti (such as Nitidula grisea , 
Kngis rufifrons , Anobium tessellation, , Ac.). A few 
Moths may also be found, especially the December 
Moth {Pcecilccampta Populi ), measuring about an inch 
and a half in the expanse of the wings, which are of a 
purplish brown colour with the base and slender inner 
margin red-brown, a buff stripe, very much curved, 
near the base, not extending to the inner margin, and 
a second one of the same colour, considerably undulated, 
beyond the middle; the fringe alternately grey and 
brown, hind wings paler with a slightly defined pale 
central stripe. The abdomen is thick and the insect is 
generally found on the trunks of trees, where it forms 
an essential part of the food of our soft-billed birds. 
The Yellow Line Quaker-Moth {Ortliosia flmilined), 
the Incomplete Moth {Basystoma salicella), the "Wing¬ 
less Moth {Cheimophila Phryganella), and the Winter 
Tortrix [Cheimatophila castanearia), are also now to 
be found chiefly on the trunks of trees. J. 0. W. 
