APPLE INSECTS — BUDS AND FOLIAGE 



75 



The resplendent shield-bearer (Coptodisca splendor if erella 

 Clemens). 



Throughout the northern United States, from Maine to 

 Minnesota often there may be found attached to the bark 

 of apple, pear, quince, thorn-apple and wild cherry trees curi- 

 ous little, oval, disk-shaped, seed- 

 like, yellowish bodies about yq of an 

 inch long (Fig. 78). From these 

 little shields or cases, fastened to the 

 bark at one end by a silken button, 

 there emerges in May a tiny, bril- 

 liantly colored, golden-headed moth 

 (Fig. 79). The basal half of the ^'''- /.v; ~ ^^''T'''!'''?- TJ" 



. coons of the resplendent shield- 



front wmgs are leaden-gray with a bearer. 



resplendent luster and the remainder 



golden with silvery and dark brownish streaks. These beautiful 

 little creatures run about on the leaves in the sunshine and lay 

 their eggs, from which hatch the tiny, light, yellowish-brown, 

 legless caterpillars about \ of an inch in length. These make 

 an irregular dark-colored blotch mine, about \ of an inch in 



diameter, in the leaves and 

 observable from both sur- 

 faces. When full-grown, 

 the caterpillars line a por- 

 tion of the mine with silk, 

 deftly cut it out and thus 



Fig. 79. -The moth of the resplendent f^j.^ ^j^^jj, seed-like shield, 

 shield-bearer (X 10). 



Dropping from the leaves 

 in July b}^ a silken thread, they finally reach the bark or 

 the ground, or are blown to other trees, where the cases 

 are fastened. A second brood of the little miners works on 

 the leaves in September and during October they fasten their 

 cases to the bark and hibernate therein as caterpillars. 

 Several quite serious outbreaks of this tiny shield-bearer 



