Dec., 'oyj ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 415 



leaves. As the larva? spin a carpet of silk wherever they go, 

 this also aids in keeping the tube effectually sealed and in 

 preventing the opening of the growing leaf. These hibernating 

 larv.-e vary greatly in si/.e, and moult at least once before the 

 last larval stage is reached. After taking possession of a 

 leaf, the lower portion of the leaf-tube rapidly fills up with 

 corky frass particles, in which the cocoon is spun, the larva 

 having previously cut two holes through the leaf wall, a large 

 one above for the emergence of the moth, and by burrowing 

 down in the trass-filled tube, a small one some distance below 

 the location chosen for the cocoon, this second hole being 

 apparently for drainage ; just above this drainage hole and 

 between it and the cocoon, the tube is sealed with a lightly 

 spun web, usually not too closely-spun to retain the water 

 (see Plate XV). The small hole where the larva entered the 

 leaf, unless obliterated by feeding or plugged with the ac- 

 cumulated frass, is usually closed with a web. The larva 

 sometimes changes from the old leaf to a new one, and when 

 this occurs just before pupation, unlike semicrocea, it eats 

 enough of the new leaf to furnish frass and nibbled particles 

 to render the cocoon opaque ;' usually, however, the cocoon is 

 composed of the corky frass particles loosely held together 

 with silk, and is built against one side of the tube, the leaf- 

 wall on that side forming one wall of the cocoon. All the 

 pupas of a midsummer brood examined in Richmond County, 

 N. C., in 1903, were pale amber color; of several hundred 

 pupa,- under observation at Summerville, S. C., this spring, 

 nearly all were very dark, some even almost black. The same 

 variation in color of pupa- was noted in semicrocea, so the 

 dark pupa may be characteristic of the spring broods. 



The pupa of riditnjsii is similar to that of semicrocea, illus- 

 trated by Riley, but the cone-shaped projection over the head 

 is much larger in the former species (Plate XV, upper fig- 

 ures, ridinysii, lower figures sciuicrocca). In ridin^sii the 

 pupal stage lasts ten to twelve days, emergence taking place 

 in the daytime, usually bctwivn twelve and four o'clock. The" 

 pupa sometimes forces itself through the top of the cocoon 

 before the escape of the moth. Pupation of the spring brood 



