72 Report of State Board of Horticulture. 



A still more remarkable variation from the usual habits of 

 the insect as recorded from other localities, exists in the 

 times at which the moths deposit their eggs. The idea held 

 until recently was that the eggs are laid in the calyx or 

 blossom end of the fruit soon after the blossoms fall. This 

 idea was first shown to be erroneous by the observations of 

 Koebele in 1888. In September he found only about one 

 pear in twenty without eggs or young larvae of the codling 

 moth. "As many as eleven eggs were found upon a single 

 pear. One was found on the stem, six on the pear surround- 

 ing the stem, two on the upper half and the other two near 

 the calyx." Since then the fact that the eggs are not laid in 

 the calyx but upon the exposed surface of the fruit, has been 

 verified by Washburn, Slingerland, Card, and others, and 

 Card has also called attention to the fact that they are some- 

 times exposed upon the leaves. 



In New York, Slingerland found eggs upon the fruit the 

 last week in May (1896-97), a week or more after the blos- 

 somis had fallen. Gillette states that in Iowa, in 1889, no 

 larvae had hatched until nearly a month after the blossoms 

 were off. Allowing for an existence of a week or ten days 

 for the egg stage would bring the date of oviposition from 

 two or three weeks after the petals fell. In 1887, Card ob- 

 served that while the petals were mostly off by May 10, the 

 first eggs were not found until about three weeks later. 



At Corvallis egg laying is delayed until a much later date. 

 April 10, 11 and 12, 1898, moths were placed in breeding 

 cages with fresh blossoms for the purpose of obtaining eggs. 

 None were obtained, however, and neither eggs nor larvae 

 were seen upon the fruit out of doors until July 1, when a 

 single recently hatched larva was found just beneath the 

 skin of a Waxen apple. July 4, three more were found, and 

 on July 7, ninety-seven of the 475 apples on the tree were 

 found to contain young larvae. Allowing a maximum of ten 

 days for the egg state brings the date at which the very first 

 eggs were deposited at June 21, while the egg laying evidently 

 did not become general until about June 28. As shown 

 above the petals had fallen by April 28, about two months 

 before. In 1899, however, moths were placed in breeding 



