Thk Pkach-Trke Borer. 



191 



live for three or four days in cages before we killed tlieiii, but there 

 seems to be no definite data as to how long they live, probably it is 

 not more than a week. 



Oviposition, and desGription of the e(j<j. — The moths may copu- 

 late very soon after they emei'ge from the pupa ; copulation may 

 last for half an hour or more, and we have seen a mated })air fly 

 from tree to tree meanwhile. Our experience, like that of others, 

 indicates that the sexes will not mate when confined in cages. Egg- 

 laying may begin in three or four hours 





after the females emerge. Smith ( 1897 ) 

 states that if the eggs are not fertilized 

 by the male within twenty-four hours, 

 the females lay them unfertilized to get 

 rid of them ; these eggs do not hatch, 

 however. The eggs are laid in rhe day- 

 time, usually, it is said, from 11 a. m. to 

 1 p. M. 



Most of the eggs in the body of the 

 female when she emerges are full size, 

 and have a hard, brown shell, hence it 

 is not a difficult matter to dissect them 

 out and count them. This has been done 

 by some, and the results show how many 

 eggs may be laid by a female of the peach- 

 tree borer. In 1820 " W. T.," of Wash- 

 ington, D. C, counted 678 eggs in one 

 female ; this is the largest number thus 

 far recorded. In 1897 Smith dissected 

 from a female, only two hours old, 500 

 eggs with a hard, brown shell, and fully m. 



100 more white or less mature ones ; and in another female he 

 counted 625 eggs, " all but very few of them brown and of full 

 size." In a small female we found the 244 eggs shown natural size 

 at m in figure 50. Thus one female is capable of laying fi-oni 200 

 to over 600 eggs. As Smith (1898) states : " Evidently thei-e is an 

 enormous discrepancy between the reproductive power of the female 

 and the actual number of larv^ or borers produced," else our peach 



50. — Eggfi of peach-tree 

 borer, natural size 

 at n; one egg, en- 

 larged at 1; micro- 

 pyle end of egg, 

 greatly enlarged at 



