THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST 93 



A FEW NOTES ON THE LIFE HISTORY OF 

 PHALONIA SPARTINANA. 



BY C. N. AINSLIE, U. S. BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



This moth, recently described in the pages of the Canadian 

 Entomologist* by Drs. Barnes and McDunnough, has been but 

 once or twice taken in the open by the writer, but a number of 

 adults have been reared in captivity at Elk Point, South Dakota. 

 The species appears to cover a wide range of territory, for the larvae 

 have been found by the writer from the Canadian boundary to 

 Southern Iowa, in fact the host grass, wherever it grows, seems to 

 be infested by this insect. 



The host grass. Spartina ?nichauxiana, upon which the larvae 

 feed, occurs on low land and in swampy places, making a very rank 

 growth. At times it attains a height of eight or nine feet, with a 

 lower stem as large as a lead pencil or even larger. It is known as 

 rope grass, or, locally, as red gut. In Eastern South Dakota the 

 larvae of this moth invade this grass very extensively, the infesta- 

 tion being as great in some places as 50%. The presence of the 

 larvae is shown, when the grass stem is split, by a fine, free, granular 

 frass that loosely fills the gallery made by the borer. 



The Egg. 



The egg of the moth is of the disk type, so usual among the 

 Tortricids. It is an irregular, flattened, disk-like form, orna- 

 mented by coarsely dotted radiating lines. A very few of these 

 eggs have been seen, attached to the glumes of the Spartina head, 

 the eggs being laid in ribbons of four or five, fastened together by 

 their edges. The diameter of these disks is about .6 mm. 



The Larva. 



As soon as it leaves the egg the larva appears to feed first on 

 the contents of the Spartina glumes, boring into one after another 

 and devouring the anthers and stigmas of the undeveloped florets. 

 After feeding for a week or more in this manner, it moves down to 

 the stem, just below the base of the head and bores a circular 

 opening into the stem after first spinning a slight silken shelter 

 for itself for protection before it gets fairly inside. The opening it 

 makes is about .75 mm. in diameter. 

 *Vol. XLVIII, 1916, p. 144. 



March, 1917 



