1896.] ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 107 



What appears to be the same species has been several times reared at 

 this Department under circumstances indicating hyperparasitism, includ- 

 ing rearings from the imported cabbage butterfly (Pieris rapes}, also from 

 a number of other insects including the imported currant worm (Nematus 

 ventricosus) and codling moth, upon which the species was probably also 

 secondary in attack. F. H. CHITTENDEN. 



Peach Insects. The peach tree, as cultivated at present, is short lived. 

 It comes into bearing more quickly than most other fruit trees, and after 

 bearing a few crops dies, or is taken out to be replaced in newly set or- 

 chards. For this short life there are several reasons, all of them more or 

 less under the control of the farmer. There is frequently an absence of 

 knowledge as to the treatment required by the tree, of the proper kind 

 and quantity of plant-food to le furnished, and of the special factors- 

 conducive to the best and most vigorous growth in this species. 



Accompanying any adverse natural conditions and intensifying them 

 are the attacks of insects of which several species are seriously destruc- 

 tive. Perhaps the most important, take the country -through, is the 

 "Peach-borer," the larva of a clear-winged moth, Sannina exitiosa. 

 This larva is a white, wrinkled caterpillar, with a brown head and power- 

 ful jaws or mandibles, and it works in the sap-wood and partly also in the 

 bark of the trunk at or just below the surface of the ground. There it 

 lies in a mass of gummy exudation and works around the larger roots and 

 trunk, not boring much if any in the wood itself. The flow of sap is, of 

 course, interrupted at these points, and worse than all the profuse " bleed- 

 ing" tends to seriously impair the vitality of a small tree when even a 

 single larva is at work. On larger trees, in which several may be feeding 

 at one time, the result is correspondingly serious; the fruit sets heavily, 

 perhaps, but the tree is unable to hold it and we get the heavy "June 

 drop." What remains is often enough for a good crop, provided the tree 

 is able to carry it to perfection; but it is rarely able to do even that, and 

 undersized, unsatisfactory fruit results. As injury increases, less fruit is 

 properly matured and the tree becomes unprofitable and is taken out. 



The parents of this borer are much less known to the farmer generally. 

 They are on the wing from May to July, their first appearance determined 

 by latitude and are slender, black and wasp-like in appearance. In the 

 male both pairs of wings are transparent and narrow, only the veins being 

 narrowly black marked. In the female, which is somewhat larger and 

 more robust, the fore wings are bluish black, and the abdomen has a 

 broad orange band at about its middle. Eggs are laid, soon after the 

 moths appear, on the bark as near to the surface of the ground as possible. 

 The larvje hatch in about two weeks, and at once bore into the bark, and 

 in a few days reach the sap-wood, where they continue their feeding until 

 cold weather sets in. In the Southern States they are nearly full grown 

 at that time and do little more feeding in Spring before they form a con >< >n 

 out of chips and silk, attached to the trunk close to the surface. In the 

 Northern Slates the borer becomes little more than two-thirds grown in. 



