354 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



hinder margin of each of the fore-wings. During the latter part 

 of June and the month of July, these fruit-moths fly about apple- 

 trees every evening, and lay their eggs on the young fruit. They 

 do not puncture the apples, but they drop their eggs, one by one, 

 in the eye or hollow at the blossom-end of the fruit, where the 

 skin is most tender. They seem also to seek for early fruit 

 rather than for the late kinds, which we find are not so apt to be 

 wormy as the thin-skinned summer apples. The eggs begin to 

 hatch in a few days after they are laid, and the little apple-worms 

 or caterpillars produced from them immediately burrow into the 

 apples, making their way gradually from the eye towards the 

 core. Commonly only one worm will be found in the same 

 apple ; and it is so small at first, that its presence can only be 

 detected by the brownish powder it throws out in eating its way 

 through the eye. The body of the young insect is of a whitish 

 color ; its head is heart-shaped and black ; the top of the first 

 ring or collar and of the last ring is also black ; and there are 

 eight little blackish dots or warts, arranged in pairs, on each of 

 the other rings. As it grows older its body becomes flesh- 

 colored ; its head, the collar, and the top of the last ring, turn 

 brown, and the dots are no longer to be seen. In the course 

 of three weeks, or a little more, it comes to its full size, and 

 meanwhile has burrowed to the core and through the apple in 

 various directions. To get rid of the refuse fragments of its 

 food, it gnaws a round hole through the side of the apple, and 

 thrusts them out of the opening. Through this hole also the 

 insect makes its escape after the apple falls to the ground ; and 

 the falling of the fruit is well known to be hastened by the in- 

 jury it has received within, which generally causes it to ripen 

 before its time. 



Soon after the half-grown apples drop, and sometimes while 

 they are still hanging, the worms leave them and creep into 

 chinks in the bark of the trees or into other sheltered places, 

 which they hollow out with their teeth to suit their shape. Here 

 each one spins for itself a cocoon or silken case, as thin, deli- 

 cate, and white as tissue paper. Some of the apple-worms, 

 probably the earliest, are said by Kollar to change to chrysalids 

 immediately after their cocoons are made, and in a few days 



