The Palmer- Worm. 95 



The adult insect or moth. — The palmer-worm moth is a minute 

 gray or brownish gray insect, measuring across its expanded wings 

 only a little more than lialf an inch (1-i to 17 mm.). The front 

 wings are more or less sprinkled with black scales, and usually four 

 small black spots, arranged obliquely, are to be distinguished near 

 the middle of each front wino; ; near the frinojed edj^e there are 

 also six or seven small black dots, and sometimes a dusky band 

 crosses the wing between the central black spots and the outer 

 fringe. The hind wings are heavily fringed, and are of a dusky 

 color with a glossy azure-blue reflection. The antennae have a 

 ringed appearance, the joints being alternately dark and light. 



The moth is well shown, natural size, in the lower left-hand 

 corner of the enlarged pictures in figures 23 and 2i ; figure 24- is a 

 reproduction from photos taken from life of the moth at rest, with 

 front portion of the body slightly raised, on an apple leaf. The 

 moth is quite variable in general color and mai'kings, as is well 

 shown in fioj-ures 23 and 26.* 



concolorous with the head, except a trace of a blackish, caudal border; usually, 

 however, this shield is marked with a black u shaped spot on each half, the width 

 of the arms of the u varying considerably and merging into the following variety 

 of this caterpillar. 



General body color on dorsum is a dark olive-green; the head is of a very dark 

 brown, almost black, color, and the thoracic shield is nearly covered by the black, 

 U-shaped spots (see lower larva in figure 27). This variety is doubless Fitch's 

 Comrade Palmer-w^orm {Y. contubernalellus). 



The larvae are sparsely hairy, the hairs arising from black spots. These black 

 piliferous spots are much more distinct on some specimens, usually being much 

 less distinct on the lighter colored larvae; but on the thoracic segments they are 

 always very distinct. The abdomen bears five pairs of pro-legs, the caudad pair 

 being much larger and projecting caudad as shown in figure 25, when the larva 

 is at rest. 



* Fitch described seven different varieties of the moth (2d Rept., 229, 233), and 

 described the variety shown on the right in figure 26 as a distinct species, the 

 comrade palmer- worm {contuhernalellus). Largely on account of this variation 

 of the moths, tlie insect has been described as a new species under at least six 

 different names (see the synonomy on page 111). Most of the differences are 

 due to the variation from an ash-gray to a tawny-yellow color of the front wings, 

 the absence of or unusual distinctness of one or more of the black dots near the 

 center of the wing, or the absence of the dusky band toward the outer fringe. 



The most remarkable variation, however, is shown on the right in figure 26, 

 where the costal half of the v/ing is of a light tawny-yellow color and the other 



