74 Report of State Board of Horticulture. 



seen through the shells and most of them emerged September 

 12, seven days after the eggs were deposited. This corre- 

 sponds with Slingerland's observations in New York, and is 

 undoubtedly, as he suggests, about. the average duration of 

 this stage. Several of the larvae were seen to emerge from 

 the egg. In every instance they broke through the upper 

 shell and entered the fruit from some other point. Simpson, 

 however, mentions instances in which the larvae had evi- 

 dently eaten directly through the lov/er surface of the shell 

 into the fruit. If such a habit were general, our poison 

 sprays would, of course, be valueless. 



THE LARVA. 



When first hatched, the young larvae are scarcely more 

 than one-sixteenth inch long, semi-transparent or whitish in 

 color and marked with little black spots, each of which bears 

 a minute hair. The head, and the thoracic and anal shields 

 are black. 



True to the instinct of self preservation, the young larvae 

 attempt to get under some protecting cover as soon as possi- 

 ble. Crawling here and there over the surface of the fruit, 

 they seek some secluded spot where they may be hidden from 

 their numerous enemies. This undoubtedly accounts for the 

 fact that a large proportion of them enter the fruit at the 

 blossom end, at the point of contact of two apples, or where 

 a leaf rests upon a fruit. Failing to find such a sheltered 

 spot, the young larvae spins a web of a few silken threads 

 on the surface of the fruit, evidently to give a firmer foot- 

 hold, and immediately attempts to bite through the skin. 

 One that I observed succeeded only after several ineffectual 

 attempts, and while making these attem.pts and. in burrowing 

 into the fruit, as much haste was exhibited as a soldier under 

 fire would probably exhibit in constructing a rifle pit. In a 

 little more than an hour it had excavated more than its full 

 length into the fruit, enlarged the cavity so that it could turn 

 about in it and spun a silken protecting web across the en- 

 trance. The reason is evident why the codling moth in its 

 larval stage within the fruit is subject to the attacks of so 

 few enemies. 



