The Peach-Tree Borer. 169 



hairs on the body are comparatively longer. We have seen no indi- 

 cations that young peach-tree borers present such striking differences 

 from the older ones as do those of the closely allied squash-vine 

 borer. (See Bull. 19, U. S. Div. Ent., p. 35-36.) 



The adult insect. — The adult form or the parent of the peach- 

 tree borer is a moth. The moth belongs to a remarkable family of 

 insects known as the Clear-winged Moths, many of the members of 

 which resemble bees or wasps in appearance more than they do 

 ordinary moths, a resemblance due to their clear or unsealed wings 

 and in some cases to their bright colors. DeGeer, writing more than 

 a century and a quarter ago, says of one of these wasp-like moths : 

 " When I saw the moth for the first time, I dared not take it with 

 the naked hand, so sure was I that it was a wasp." (DeGeer's Abh. 

 zur Gesch. der Insekten, German Translation, Vol.11., p. 163.) A 

 glance at figure 43 will show how easily one might mistake the 

 moth, especially a male, for a wasp, so striking is the resemblance. 

 It is not strange that the adult insect was regarded as a wasp by 

 some of the early writers and was once so described and named 

 {Apis persica, by Thomas in 1824). 



In figure 43 it will be noticed that two of the moths there illus- 

 trated have a very different appearance, resembling wasps much less 

 than do the other two moths. All of the moths in the figure are 

 peach-tree borer moths, and simply represent the two sexes, the 

 male and female which differ so strikingly in appearance that one 

 may well wonder if they can belong to the same species of insect. 

 Could the figures have been colored true to life the remarkable 

 unlikeness of the two sexes and the striking resemblance of the male 

 to a wasp would have been more vivid. 



The male moth is represented, twice natural size, at m in figure 

 44, and natural size, by a large and a small specimen, at n in the same 

 figure. Its general color is a deep steel-blue with a glossy lustre 

 like satin ; all the dark portions of the figures are of this blue color. 

 The four wings are transparent and glass-like, with a light tinge of 

 smoky yellow ; their veins, margins and fringes are steel-bine, the 

 margins sometimes scaled more or less with yellow. The lower sides 

 of the palpi are light yellow ; there is a paler yellow spot on the ver- 

 tex of the head and a deeper yellow, transverse stripe at the base of 



