CHAPTER VII 



UPERFAMILY TlNEOIDEA 

 FAMILY TISCHERIIADE 



The single genus, Tischeria, occurring in North America 

 north of Florida, is represented by more than a dozen 

 species, whose larvae are all leaf -miners. They make 

 blotch mines, that, in some cases, from a narrow, serpentine 

 beginning, widen abruptly into the crude outline of a trum- 

 pet (whence the name, "trumpet leaf -miner" applied to one 

 of the best known of them). There is considerable variety 

 of mining habits among them, as to the part of the tissues 

 of the leaf consumed. All of them hibernate and pupate 

 within their mines, and for the purpose, line the interior of 

 late season mines copiously with silk. The preferred food- 

 plants are oaks and chestnuts, though rose and brambles, 

 apple and pear, and a few compositae are the hostplants of 

 single species. 



The best known member of this family is one that is at 

 times a serious pest in apple orchards, Tischeria malifoliella, 

 the trumpet leaf -miner. This is a native species that origi- 

 nally fed on wild hawthorns and crab-apples. It has taken 

 kindly to the cultivated apple. It has more than one brood 

 per season (two at Ithaca and four at Washington, D. C.) 

 and the later broods may infest the leaves so heavily as to 

 cause the foliage to wither and drop several weeks earlier 

 than it should, thus preventing the proper maturing of the 

 fruit, and weakening the tree. 



The moth has an expanse of wing of about a quarter of 

 an inch (6 mm.). It is gray in color, tinged with purplish, 

 "the scaletips showing some golden iridescence." 



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