_Moth_: About ⅝ of an inch long; span of wings 1¾ inches. Dark grey, mixed with a reddish tint, and darkly marbled. About the middle of the fore wing there is a very obvious gamma (γ), or Y-shaped mark. Hind wings bright brown at the root, darker at the margins, with a whitish fringe. A crest of hairs on the dorsal side of the thorax. _Caterpillar_: 12-legged. It bends its body like a looper (Fig. 102). Length 1 to 1⅕ inches. Ground colour green; but there may be variations in this from a dirty green to a brownish colour. Six fine longitudinal lines on the back, and a yellowish line above the legs. The caterpillar is almost naked, only possessing a few small, isolated bristle-like hairs. _Habits_: At least two generations, and sometimes as many as five in two years. The Silver Y Moth generally hybernates as a half-grown caterpillar, but sometimes also in the pupa, or moth state. The caterpillars may therefore be met with the whole year; but they are usually most abundant from the end of June to the middle of August, and, under favourable conditions, may become an agricultural pest. They devour the leaves of almost all wild and cultivated plants (except grasses, corn, and trees), and are especially fond of leguminous plants (peas, vetches, clover), flax, beet, rape, cabbage, and buckwheat. The moths mostly appear in May, but also in July, and later on in the summer, especially on clear days. The female lays her numerous bright green eggs, some four hundred in number, separately, on the leaves of the above-named plants. The caterpillars are not always easy to see, owing to their greenish colour; under favourable conditions they may pass through the whole of their development up to the moth stage in from six to seven weeks. In some years they appear in such large numbers, that almost all the cultivated plants found in the fields of an infested region are utterly spoilt by them, excepting the corn. _Natural enemies_: Starlings, all sharp-beaked singing birds haunting fields; sparrows; ground beetles, rove beetles, and the larvæ of these families; several ichneumon flies, parasitic fungi. _Remedies_: Driving in poultry, where practicable. Collecting, _e.g._ by means of a machine invented by L. Dehoff, of Gutenberg, near Halle. “Several troughs with steep inner walls are fastened together by laths, at distances equal to those between adjacent furrows, and besoms are fixed to the laths. These troughs are drawn along like sledges by a horse walking in the furrows, and the caterpillars are swept by the besoms into the troughs, from which they are collected in sacks at the ends of the furrows. With this cheap machine about twelve acres per day can be cleared” (Taschenberg). Family: =Pyralidæ= (_Snout Moths_).