64 
PEAR. 
of leaves through the agency of the enclosed insects. They may be 
counted by thousands in all parts of the garden, and this has been the 
case for about four years, while none of the gardens round about are 
touched.” 
Another correspondent, writing from Porchester Terrace, London, 
mentioned that the caterpillars “ were then injuring Pear-trees, and 
during the previous summer had destroyed the leaves of most of the 
trees in that neighbourhood.” 
The caterpillars are very noticeable from their peculiar tufts and 
bunches of hair. They are dark grey, spotted with small red tubercles, 
and the four large tufts of hair on the back are whitish or yellowish ; 
those at the head and tail, and the two long tufts at the side, are dark. 
When full-fed the caterpillar spins amongst the remains of the leaves 
on which it has been feeding, or in some exposed place, as on trunks 
of trees, palings, or the like, and there it changes to a dusky yellow 
chrysalis, from which the moth comes out in summer at the end of 
about fourteen days. 
The male moths are of various shades of brown or chestnut, with 
the fore wings clouded with darker colour, and with a white somewhat 
moon-shaped mark near the hinder angle. The females are grey, and 
have only abortive wings. When they come out from the chrysalis 
they creep on to the outside of the yellowish grey, somewhat oval, 
cocoon, and there pairing takes place. The female very soon begins 
depositing her eggs on the surface of the cocoon and in the immediate 
neighbourhood, and then dies. 
As the female moth cannot fly away, the attack may be expected, 
when once set up, to increase yearly, and good searching measures 
would be well worth while to get it under, and the fact of her laying 
her eggs on or near the webbed-up leaves or spun cocoon, from which 
she came out, may be turned to good account. Where there is bad 
attack all the webs that can be reached should be cut off and burnt, 
and walls and trunks of trees, and similar places, should be searched 
for webs in autumn and winter. Going over the upper part of the 
trees from a ladder and giving a good scrubbing with soft-soap, applied 
by a hard brush, to as much of the trunk or branches as would bear 
the application and could be reached, might be expected to get rid of 
the pest in whatever stage it might be passing the winter on the trees. 
When the caterpillars appear on the leafage, also when the moths 
are coming out from their chrysalis-cases in the webs, it is probable 
that good dressings of soft-soap and quassia, such as are used in Hop¬ 
gardens, and similarly thrown by large garden-engines, would be 
serviceable. 
