Richard South

“ In orchards and gardens wherein are fruit trees one may have noticed that the trunks of the trees have broad bands around them. If these bands are examined, they will be seen to be covered with a sticky compound, which has been put there for the purpose of trapping the almost wingless females of the Winter Moth, as they crawl up the tree after emergence from the chrysalis. In spite of such devices, and other precautionary measures taken to safeguard the trees from attack, the foliage of apple, pear, etc., will not be quite free from the caterpillars of this species in their season. ”

“ As a British insect, this species (Plate 100, Figs. 7 and 8) was first found in Devonshire, and was then known by the English name of "The Devon Pug." As the yellowish green caterpillar, marked with a darker line along the back and a yellowish one low down on the sides, feeds on bilberry, in April and May, and is by no means confined to Devonshire, the popular name here adopted is more suitable.
When quite fresh the moth, which is out in June and July, has a very delicate tinge of green, but this quickly fades out, leaving a pale greyish white insect. ”

“ The fore wings are whitish, more or less clouded with brownish, with dark brown, inclining to blackish, basal patch and central band. The variation tends in two opposite directions; in the one the general colour is so clouded and suffused with blackish-brown, that the entire fore wings become almost entirely of that colour (ab. piceata, Stephens) , N. England and Scotland; the other extreme is ab. porrittii, Robson, in which the central band and basal patch are black, and the white ground colour is almost free of brown clouding; the last named occurs at Dover in Kent, and Huddersfield, Yorks. ”