loo Bulletin 142. 



The Story of the Life of the Codling-moth. 



Perhaps the biography of no other insect pest has been written so 

 often as that of the codhng-moth. Begun by Goedaerdt in 1635, and 

 considerably extended by Reaumur in 1736, it was fairly well under- 

 stood by Roesel as early as 1 746. Since then the insect has been 

 studied under many varying conditions in nearly all climes, and natur- 

 ally different observers have been able to add many interesting details 

 in regard to variations in its habits and life-history. Yet there are 

 many interesting things to be learned about this common insect pest 

 before its complete biography can be written. Our story of its li^e 

 which follows is the result of a critical study of all the biographies 

 available, supplemented by many personal observations on the insect 

 in all its stages. This story may very properly begin with that stage 

 in which life begins for the insect. 



The £i^r. 



It is a curious and striking fact that it is only within the past few 

 years that anything definite has been recorded about the egg itself, in 

 which so common and important an insect pest begins its life. Recent 

 observations in this connection have brought out some facts which are 

 of vital importance to the fruit-grower. 



Historical notes. — By whom or when the eggs were first seen, wc have 

 been unable to determine. In spite of the fact that nearly every account 

 since Rocscl's, in 1746, contains definite statements regarding where they 

 are laid, and as early as 1855 we find it stated that they are said to be of 

 a pale, yellowish-red color, yet there is no definite evidence to show that 

 the eggs were ever seen on an apple before 1870, and perhaps not until 

 nearly twenty years later. The eggs have often been taken from the body 

 of the moth, and Riley's description of them as " tiny yellow eggs " (i860), 

 and Fcrnald's brief description in Bull. 12 of Mass. Expt. Sta. (1891) were 

 undoubtedly made from eggs thus obtained. If Cook saw numbers of the 

 eggs, as he states, in 1874, on or /// the calyx of the young fruit, it seems 

 strange that he has never given us a hint as to how they looked, and that 

 no other oljserver since has ever found them on or /;/, although sometimes 

 near the calyx. In 1881 Cooke saw eggs which a codling-moth had 

 deposited in a vial, and in 1882, Miss Walton states that some of the moths 

 laid a lot of eggs in her cyanide bottle, but her description does not apply 

 to any of the eggs wc have ever seen. 



