The Fruit-tree Leaf-roller 281 



THE NAME 



Nearly fifty years ago Francis Walker, a noted English authority on 

 moths and butterflies, described and named the fruit-tree leaf -roller. It 

 had evidently been collected in Georgia and finally deposited in the British 

 Museum. Walker gave it the specific name of argyrospila, which means 

 " silver-haired " and probably refers to the silvery spots on the front 

 wings. Six years later it was described as a new species by C. T. Rob- 

 inson, from specimens collected in New York and in Massachusetts. He 

 placed it in the genus Tortrix, under the specific name furvana. In the 

 same year Doctor Packard described the moth under the name Tortrix 

 V-signata, or the V-marked tortrix. Finally, the insect was placed by 

 Walsingham in the genus Caccecia where it remained until 1902, when 

 Doctor Fernald, in Dyar's Catalogue of the Lepidoptera, placed it in the 

 genus Ar chips where it still reposes. 



It has been given the common name of fruit-tree leaf-roller because 

 of its habit of rolling the leaves of the trees that it infests. There are 

 other moths of the same genus, however, which infest fruit trees and roll 

 the leaves; so that thia common name is not very distinctive. Perhaps 

 Doctor Packard's name, "' the V-marked leaf-roller," or perhaps the name 

 " silver-winged leaf -roller," would be more appropriate and distinctive. 



The following synonymy shows the history of the species in regard to its scientific 

 names: 



1863 Retinia argyrospila Walk., Cat. Lep. Brit. Mus., XXVIII, p. 373. 



1869 Tortrix furvana Rob., Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc, Vol. II, p. 265, Plate I, Fig. 9. 



1869 Tortrix V-signata Pack., 17th Rpt. Mass. Bd. Agri., p. 238. 



1875 Tortrix {LoxotcBuia) furvana Zell., Verh. Zool-bot. Ges. Wien, XXV, p. 13. 



1879 Cacascia argyrospila Wals., Ills. Typical Specimens of Lep. Het. Brit. Mus. 

 N. A. Tortricidae. 



1902 Archips argyrospila (Walk.), Dyar's List of N. A. Lep., p. 480. 



DISTRIBUTION AND FOOD PLANTS 



Dyar gives the insect's distribution as the northern United States, 

 California, and Colorado. It has been taken, however, in Georgia and 

 reported as fairly common in Maine and Massachusetts. Packard says 

 that " it ranged from Maine, where it is common, to Georgia, Texas, and 

 Missouri, while it is not uncommon on the Pacific coast." It is 

 undoubtedly widely distributed throughout the United States, but is 

 probably more abundant in the northern part. 



In New York State we have found this leaf-roller present and com- 

 mitting injury in Niagara, Orleans, Wayne, and Genesee counties. In 

 addition. Doctor Felt reports a species of Caccecia as abundant in an 

 orchard in the Hudson River valley. Very likely it is the species under 

 discussion, although Doctor Felt did not rear the moths. Unquestionably 

 the leaf-roller is widely distributed in this State. 



