Among the leaf-rolling caterpillars, there is a small dark-brown one, with a black head and six feet, very common in gardens, on the currant-bush, or the leaves of the rose-tree (_Lozotænia rosana_, Stephens). It is exceedingly destructive to the flower-buds. The eggs are deposited in the summer, and probably also in the autumn or in spring, in little oval or circular patches of a green colour. The grub makes its appearance with the first opening of the leaves, of whose structure in the half-expanded state it takes advantage to construct its summer tent. It is not, like some of the other leaf-rollers, contented with a single leaf, but weaves together as many as there are in the bud where it may chance to have been hatched, binding their discs so firmly with silk, that all the force of the ascending sap, and the increasing growth of the leaves, cannot break through; a farther expansion is of course prevented. The little inhabitant in the meanwhile banquets securely on the partitions of its tent, eating door-ways from one apartment into another, through which it can escape in case of danger or disturbance. The leaflets of the rose, it may be remarked, expand in nearly the same manner as a fan, and the operations of this ingenious little insect retain them in the form of a fan nearly shut. Sometimes, however, it is not contented with one bundle of leaflets, but by means of its silken cords unites all which spring from the same bud into a rain-proof canopy, under the protection of which it can feast on the flower-bud, and prevent it from ever blowing. In the instance of the currant-leaves, the proceedings of the grub are the same; but it cannot unite the plaits so smoothly as in the case of the rose leaflets, and it requires more labour, also, as the nervures, being stiff, demand a greater effort to bend them. When all the exertions of the insect prove unavailing in its endeavours to draw the edges of a leaf together, it bends them inwards as far as it can, and weaves a close web of silk over the open space between. This is well exemplified in one of the commonest of our leaf-rolling caterpillars, which may be found as early as February on the leaves of the nettle and the white archangel (_Lamium album_). It is of a light dirty-green colour, spotted with black, and covered with a few hairs. In its young state it confines itself to the bosom of a small leaf, near the insertion of the leaf-stalk, partly bending the edges inwards, and covering in the interval with a silken curtain. As this sort of covering is not sufficient for concealment when the animal advances in growth, it abandons the base of the leaf for the middle, where it doubles up one side in a very secure and ingenious manner. [Illustration: Nest of the Nettle-leaf-rolling Caterpillar.]