THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 265 



NOTES ON SANNINA UROCERIFORMIS. 



BY GLENN W. HERRICK, AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE, MISS. 



During the spring of 1906 one of my correspondents sent me two 

 battered and broken female moths of the family Sesiidce from Ocean 

 Springs, Miss. Supposing them to be from the Peach tree, and from their 

 battered condition not being able to make out their markings distinctly, I 

 called them S. exitiosa. Having occasion to visit the fruit farm of this 

 correspondent this spring, I was surprised to find that the moths in ques- 

 tion were collected from pupse on wild Persimmon trees. It was therefore 

 with a good deal of interest that I began a careful examination of the few 

 wild Persimmon trees on his place, and other trees of the same kind in 

 the vicinity. This was on May 4. We were much disappointed at first 

 in our search, because we found only empty pupa-cases, from which the 

 adults had already and very lately flown. We found over twenty empty 

 cases on about a dozen trees, from one inch to two inches in diameter. 

 We were finally rewarded, however, by finding three or four fresh pupse in 

 some trees which had their bases heaped about with dead straw. From 

 these we went to adjoining fields, where there were a great many small 

 Persimmons, from one-half an inch to an inch and a half in diameter, that 

 had been allowed to grow up in abandoned waste fields. Here among the 

 deep grass around the bases of the trees we found twenty-odd living pupte. 

 The larvte of this moth bore into the solid wood of the taproot 

 and stem of the Persimmon. I was unable to trace their burrows farther 

 than eight or ten inches below the surface, but this was probably due to 

 the small size of the trees, for Dr. Riley says they bore from 16 to 18 

 inches below the ground. 



In most of the trees examined, one borer only was present, and in 

 this case it usually bored directly up the centre of the tree (Plate 8, a and 

 d). In larger trees two or more borers might be present, depending upon 

 the size of the trees. In such instances they divide the space between 

 them (Plate 8, b). 



When ready to pupate, the larva extends its burrow two to four inches 

 above the ground, turns it outward, cutting through the bark, and con- 

 structs a large cocoon on the side of the tree, usually at an angle of about 

 45° to the stem (Plate 8, c). The cocoons are dark in colour, and vary 

 all the way from one inch to two and a half inches in length. The cocoon 

 at c is two and one-half inches long. 



August, 1907 



