29 
Patently completely wrecking the plant. A little later, however, the 
leaves are five or six to eight inches high, are fastened together by the 
larval spinning, and the larva is full grown, or even thinking of 
pupating, one feels little doubt then that that plant is now done for. 
A little later, however, the leaves are eight or ten inches high, their 
ends fastened together, but the flower spikes appear beneath this, and 
between the lower end of the leaves. The plant has already got on 
better than could have been expected, but of course the flower spike is 
hopelessly imprisoned. A little later, however, the leaves have grown, 
the larval spinning now appears to affect only some inches of their 
tips, and, indeed, except that the leaves are for this distance fastened 
together, they seem tolerably healthy and normal. The agglutinated 
tips, containing the pupa of the moth, or with it protruding after the 
moth’s escape, fall to one side or the other, often not very differently 
to what those of an unaffected plant do, when amongst other herbage, 
and the flowering stem ascends in quite a normal manner. The 
injury done by the larva, which, when the leaves were but short, 
seemed so extensive and destructive, is now seen to be really of a 
comparatively trivial character. 
In at least two seasons in which there happened to have been 
rather severe frosts, I noticed that the Asphodel flowers had been much 
injured, and even destroyed, the damage having been done at a time 
when the flowering stem was still only a few inches long. The top of 
the young spike being obviously much more delicate than the leaves, 
either actually or because at an earlier stage of growth, the leaves 
rarely suffered. I also noticed that the plants affected by Tortrix 
unicolnrana escaped this damage almost completely. I was inclined 
at first to ascribe this to these plants having been later and not 
exposed to the frost, the loss of vigour, owing to the larval attack, 
having delayed their development. Further consideration, however, 
after examining a number of the plants, made me doubt their being 
materially later, and led to the conclusion that the protection from frost 
enjoyed by the affected plants was obtained by the tips of the leaves 
having been fastened together, and so retained over the young flower 
stem to a late period, forming an effective screen against frost, in 
precisely the same way as our gardeners protect broccoli and other 
similar plants. An unattacked plant has the flower stem freely ex¬ 
posed very soon after it appears above ground. One with the leaves 
fastened together by T. unicolorana does not free the spike till it is six 
or eight inches long, or even considerably more, and, at one stage of 
the process, one would suppose on examining the plant that it could 
not free itself at all. 
I have ljttle doubt that this is the manner in which the attack of 
T. unicolorana protects the blossom of Asphodel from frost, but 
at any rate it does protect it in this or some other way. Out of the 
few times I have visited Cannes, it certainly afforded this protection 
in two seasons, so that it cannot be at all an exceptional matter for 
the plant to be thus materially benefitted by this insect. 
Whether the absence of frost at the lie St. Marguerite, and to 
to a great degree, I imagine, at Hyeres, and the consequent want of 
this relation between the plant and the insect, accounts for the moth 
being absent from these habitats, I can do no more than speculate. 
It is replaced at Hyeres by an allied species that appears later ; I have 
