“It is a small moth with yellow wings having the metallic sheen of copper and crossed by brown stripes. Its larva is greenish, bristling with short hairs and having a head of a dark lustrous green color. In August the moth lays its eggs on the vine leaves in little slabs of twenty at most. Hatching takes place in September. At this advanced season of the year caterpillars do not eat; they suspend themselves by a thread and wait for the wind to drive them against the vine or one of its supports. As soon as they get a foothold on the desired object they take refuge in cracks in the bark and fissures in the wood, and there they lie torpid through the winter. At the reawakening of vegetable life and the first pushing forth of the new vine shoots they leave their winter quarters, invade the vines, and entwine with silk threads the young grape clusters and the tender leaves, after which they feed upon them with an appetite sharpened by a fast of five or six months. With such ravenous eaters devastation proceeds apace, and in a few weeks, if the worms are numerous, the most flourishing vine is reduced to a pitiful condition and all hope of a harvest is abandoned. The ravages wrought by this moth between 1835 and 1840 in the vineyards of Bourgogne will long be remembered. Over immense tracts of land, when vintage-time came, there was not a single bunch of grapes to go into the basket. The greedy caterpillars ruined the country.” “Didn’t the people try to get rid of the creatures?” asked Louis. “They tried various methods, but with little success until finally one proved effective, and that the simplest and cheapest of all. Let us note by the way, my little friends, what an advantage it is to be acquainted with the habits of an insect that does us harm. If this moth’s peculiarities had not been studied, if it had not been known that its larvæ hide themselves in the fissures of the vines and the trellises, there to lie torpid all winter, our vineyards might still be suffering from this terrible enemy. This fact being known, the remedy was not far to seek. “It is this: in winter the vines and trellises are scalded with boiling water, the water being heated over a fire in the middle of the vineyard. “With a coffee-pot about a liter of hot water is poured on each vine so as to reach all the parts where worms may be lurking. Protected by its tough bark, the vine itself does not suffer from this scalding bath, while the caterpillars are completely destroyed. By this method the vineyards of Bourgogne were so entirely rid of the dreaded moth that no further ravages of any account have been reported.” “Couldn’t the moths come back again some time, as many as ever?” asked Jules. “That is hardly possible if at their first appearance the coffee-pot of hot water is brought into play.