MOTTLED UMBER MOTH. 
17 
and also to keep the application, whatever it may be, sticky, that the 
moths cannot pass over the bodies of those already stuck fast, nor the 
eggs which they lay on the tar remain unkilled. Also, the application 
should be put near ground-level, not at the base of the branches. The 
bark is harder and better able to bear application below than above, 
and also, if the moths are allowed access to the trunk, they will in all 
probability lay eggs there, and the caterpillars, when hatched, will 
have no difficulty in creeping up the tree over the band applied months 
before, over the dead moths stuck to it whilst it was wet. But even 
with the greatest care, if there is much attack about, probably shaking 
down will be needed in the summer, on account of the caterpillars 
being blown as they swing on their long threads from infested trees ; 
and also from the male and female moths being transmitted together 
by flight. 
Amongst various points of useful information, contributed by 
Capt. Corbett, relatively to prevention of Winter Moth-attack, he 
mentioned that tarred boards, with a lantern hung up, catch the 
male moths. I have also seen them caught in large numbers with the 
female moths on the sticky trees. 
Amongst general remedies suited to destroy chrysalids are hoeing 
and stirring the earth under the trees. Where this can be done, it 
answers both by destroying some of the chrysalids and turning others 
out to the birds, and to weather influences. Various caterpillars, or 
chrysalids, will not suffer from cold, if left in their own self-chosen or 
self-made shelters, but will perish if thrown out to alternate frost and 
wet; and, as some proportion of the Winter Moth-chrysalids may 
possibly not develop with the greater number at the end of October, 
but remain in chrysalis-state until the following spring, the above 
treatment helps to clear out these stragglers. 
Where orchards are on grass-land, any treatment which will prevent 
the herbage being long enough to give shelter (as, for instance, to the 
Lackey Moths) is of use. Also such measures as folding and hand¬ 
feeding sheep on successive portions of the ground, until they are bare 
and sodden and covered with the droppings, is an excellent way of 
getting rid of insect-pests that harbour on the surface. 
But, besides treatment suited to cared-for land and trees, it would 
be well to give a thought to such a state of things as I have seen for 
a good part of my life in some places in the West of England, and 
which may exist still. In those parts it was thought desirable that 
Apple-trees should touch, so that the upper boughs made a super¬ 
stratum, and the consequences were that the under boughs gave a 
shelter and a slow succession of opening to the buds, excellently 
suitable for insect-multiplication ; and in the shade below, the grass 
grew long and dank, and nettles and weeds grew high and strong, 
