164 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



complete insect, which may even then diifer in color and 

 raarkinojs in the different sexes. 



On the other hand, while it is true that we may have five 

 or six species of Tortrix moths, feeding in their larval stage 

 on the cranberry, it is also certain that, as yet, but two are 

 the occasion of any very serious trouble, as far as is generally 

 known, on the plantations in this and neighboring States. 



We have seen in the twelfth report that the moths there men- 

 tioned are described as from " small, white caterpiUars, with 

 blackish heads," and that, throughout the reports generally, 

 this characteristic seems to be referable to a single species, 

 and this is probably also the same as that mentioned in the 

 fourteenth report, though it says, " Its color is light, with a 

 bluish tinge ; " it also says, ''its head is black, and it is 

 about three-eighths of an inch in length Avhen fully grown." 

 This, then, is still another point of dispute. Are there two 

 distinct species of vine worm ? or are the descriptions refer- 

 able to the different stages of one individual? 



In June, 1883, I wrote to Dr. 0. Briggs of North Roches- 

 ter, Mass., who very kindly sent me specimens of the vines- 

 as infested with " the ' fire worm,' so called." He adds that, 

 "the worm, when very small, apparently just hatched, ap- 

 pears first in the cranberry buds, and it is thought by many, 

 that the miller always deposits in the bud, or where the bud 

 will appear." 



The vines sent me by Dr. Briggs were infested by a worm 

 which is apparently the same as the species noted above in 

 reports twelve and fourteen, and seem to be all the same 

 species. They all act in apparently the same way, and 

 though some are plainly and evidently "white -caterpillars, 

 with blackish heads," others are also "light, with a bluish 

 tinge," and "its head is black," still others are "pale, honey 

 yellow," with a slight greenish tinge, a little stretch of the 

 imagination reconciling the deep olivaceous color of so many 

 caterpillars (so natural to them, I mean) to either of the 

 above tints. Now, in the cases above-mentioned, the head 

 is black, whether the body be honey yellow, white, or 

 tinged with green or blue. In a single specimen obtained 

 later, the body was small and greenish, with the head not 

 black but with a distinct tinge of dark, almost black amber 



