36 
CURRANT. 
sometimes on Gooseberry; but I believe they prefer Currant. In one 
garden the Currant bushes were stripped, and Gooseberries not touched, 
though within a few feet. 
“ The Magpie Moth has been more numerous than for many years 
before. Here it has been abundant in one or two places, and has 
Abraxas grossulariata. 
Magpie Moth. 
entirely stripped the bushes. I have also seen it commonly in Cam¬ 
bridgeshire, Lincolnshire, Notts, and parts of Yorkshire, and I have 
notes of its extreme abundance near Bradford, Ilkley, Pickering, &c. 
In places where the trees can be bent over and shaken all the cater¬ 
pillars drop, and it is easy to pick them up, if gardeners would be at 
the trouble. In some of the places where Magpie grubs have been 
abundant I know that Sparrows are plentiful, so it is clear they do not 
take them, or at least, if they do, not to any great extent.” 
The Magpie Moth is widely distributed, and the caterpillars 
injurious from the Orkneys to the South of England, and, besides the 
leafage of Black, Red, and White Currants, and also of Gooseberries, 
which they habitually feed on, they are sometimes found on that of 
Apricots and Plums, and especially frequent Sloe or Blackthorn 
hedges. In various instances in which attack has been reported on 
Blackthorn (and sometimes as occurring to a great extent), attack to 
the bush-fruit leafage at the locality has not been reported, or has 
been mentioned expressly as not being to a great extent. I have 
myself observed in W. Gloucestershire, in a locality where there were 
large Sloe hedges, that there was little injury from the Magpie cater¬ 
pillars to fruit-bushes in the garden, and it is worth observing whether 
this very favourite wild food-plant may not attract the moth from the 
garden bushes. 
The moth is very variable in its colouring, but when regular 
in its markings is easily known. The wings are white spotted 
with black, and the fore wings are yellow at the base, with a 
yellow band across them-. The body between the wings is yellow. 
The caterpillar is cream-coloured, with an orange stripe along each 
side, and black spots along the back. It is also orange-coloured 
beneath six of the segments, and the 2nd segment wholly orange- 
