Entomology. 401 



About $3,000,000 worth of "wormy" apples and pears are grown in 

 j!^ew York state every year. How many know where the codling moth 

 or apple worm, which causes this great loss, spent the holidays this 

 winter? The same worms or caterpillars that made the fruit "wormy" 

 last fall, are now in hibernation; thus, in the case of this common insect 

 pest, the winter is passed as a caterpillar. Where ? Soon after the 

 worm leaves an apple, it spins about itself a tight, rather dense cocoon of 

 silk, within which it hibernates. If the worm does not get full-grown 

 and leave the fruit until after it is barreled or put in storage, its cocoon 

 or winter home will be made in the most convenient crack or cranny in 

 barrel or storeroom. If the worms escape from the fruit while the latter 

 is on the tree or on the ground beneath, then most of them find their 

 way to the trunk of the tree, under the loose bark of which they spin their 

 winter home. Thus many of the same worms which infested apples and 

 pears in 1898, are now to be found on the trunks of the trees snugly 

 tucked away in a silken home of their own construction. I doubt 

 whether they are frozen in these tight, warm homes; but many of them 

 do not escape the sharp eyes and bills of the birds which spend the winter 

 with us; there are many "ups and downs" in an insect's life. 



Plum Curculio; Pear Psylla. — Another inveterate enemy of the 

 fruit-grower is the Plum curculio. The curculios which stung the fruit 

 last spring, all died before July, but from their eggs were developed 

 grubs, which went into the ground, and there transformed through pupae. 

 Plum curculios or beetles. These curculios emerged from the ground 

 in July and August, fed for a time on the plum or other foliage, and 

 then in September or later sought a sheltered spot where they might spend 

 the holidays and the rest of the winter in a quiet sleep, undisturbed by 

 prowling enemies. Plum growers have noticed that they catch more 

 curculios in the spring on those plum trees nearest a patch of woodland 

 or a hedgerow of some sort; this is because such places offer ideal hiber- 

 nating quarters for the curculios. Thus this insect passes the mnter in 

 the adult stage, and the curculios which will sting the fruits in 1899, 

 were born in July or August, 1898, and have withstood the attacks 

 of Jack Frost during one Avinter. 



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