184 BULLETIN 190, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



hardy summer squash. The fall squash, planted later in the season, is 

 left practically uninfested. 



The moths are active, rapid fliers, swarming over fields of squash in 

 sunshine and resting exposed on the plants on cloudy days and at night. 

 Flowers attract them. The brown, disklike eggs are laid on any part of 

 the plant but preferably at the bases of the vines. The larvae tunnel in 

 the more or less exposed, main portions of the vine, subsisting largely 

 on the juices rather than the plant tissue. On maturity late in summer 

 or early in fall they desert their burrows and spin tough parchmentlike 

 cocoons a little below the surface of the ground; in these they rest until 

 they change to pupae in the spring of the year following. A chisellike 

 organ on the head of the pupa is used to cut a circular lid from the cocoon 

 and to enable the pupa to wriggle to the surface before the moth emerges, 

 which is usually in June or July. There are occasional records of moths 

 collected as late as September in temperate regions and numerous rec- 

 ords from Southern and Southwestern States as late as October and 

 November. These suggest a 2-brooded species. However, as the larvae 

 are dependent on living plants and cultivated squashes are annuals, a 

 successful second brood seems unlikely, except under unusually propitious 

 conditions. 



Color variations are not sufficiently distinct to warrant recognition in 

 the North American distribution of this species. Males sometimes lack 

 the red shading on the abdominal segments. (Cabinet specimens quickly 

 become greasy if not subjected to treatment.) Melittia amoena Hy. 

 Edwards is a black-bodied, but otherwise normal, male from Kansas. 

 Examples from southwestern Texas and from Mexico average slightly 

 larger and have wing colors of a lighter olive-green than normal specimens 

 from the United States. Entry into this country most likely occurred 

 from that direction and not from Baja California, where records are still 

 lacking from across the border. 



Persistently confining its attacks only to cucurbits under cultivation, 

 the common squash borer now has spread over the United States and into 

 Canada, except on the Pacific coast. Serious injury has been reported 

 from almost every region suitable for the cultivation of squash, and 

 numerous papers covering the subject have been published, 



MELITTIA GRANDIS (Strecker) 



Trochilinm grande Strecker, Can. Ent., vol. 13, p. 156, 1881. 



Melittia grandis Grote, New check list of North American moths, p. 11, 1882. — 

 Beutenmuller, Bull. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 8, p. 114, 1896; vol. 12, 

 p. 151, 1899; Mem. Amer. Mus. Nat. Hist., vol. 1. pt. 6, p. 235, pi. 29, fig. 4 

 (female), 1901.— McDunnough, Check list of the Lepidoptera of Canada and 

 the United States of America, pt. 2, No. 8780, 1939. 



Melittia beckeri Druce, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., ser. 6, vol. 9, p. 276, 1892; Biologia 

 Centrali-Americana, Lepidoptera, vol, 2, p. 325, pi. 69, fig. 18, 1896. 



