WINTER MOTH. 
5 
“We have had a plague of looper grubs on the outside fruit trees 
here, for the last two or three years, which destroys all the blossom 
and leaves also on the trees, and, although we have tried every remedy 
abroad, we have failed to cure it.” 
The further description of the grub being a pale green looper 
caterpillar about half an inch long when full grown, fairly suited the 
Winter Moth caterpillar, and, after advising smearing a band round 
Cheimatobia beumata. 
Winter Moth. Male, winged ; female, with abortive wings. 
the base of the trees with any sticky material which might stop the 
females in their upward passage, I received the following note from 
Mr. Charman, gardener at Farm Hill Park :— 
“ Nov. 10th. I have used Davidson’s composition, and find it 
sticks fast everything that touches it, and I find a quantity of wingless 
female moths stuck to the base of the trees.” 
On Dec. 11th he further mentioned :—“ I have caught upwards of 
500 of the female moths, and they are still going up the trees, but I 
could not say that they were travelling up every evening. The method 
I adopt for catching them is as follows :—I paint the stem with the 
composition for about a foot, sometimes two feet if the tree is a 
standard. I then go round in the morning, or whenever I have the 
opportunity, which is sometimes not for two or three days, and with 
an old knife and tin lid to put them in, take off all the moths I can 
find attached to the composition and burn them. 
“I found thirty yesterday stuck to one Apple tree, and I should 
think that each female would produce at least a hundred eggs, and 
some a great many more. I counted three hundred from one large 
Moth.” 
In this case the attack, judging from the specimens forwarded 
appeared to be that of Hybernia Prosapiaria (Westwood), a kind of 
Winter Moth a little larger than what is known as the “ Common 
Winter Moth,” figured above; but the treatment for all is the same. 
In either case the female Moth walks up the stems of the trees she 
is about to lay eggs on in the late autumn or during winter (whence 
the name), and the simple process mentioned above is a most effectual 
preventive of attack. 
