466 FRUIT INSECTS 



cannot be controlled by poisons or by reflowing the bogs. In 

 some cases it might be worth while to destroy all plants of loose- 

 strife or heaths growing near the cranberries in which the flies 

 might breed. 



Reference 



U. S. Dept. Agr. Farmers' Bull. 178, pp. 17-19. 1903. 



The Cranberry Fruit-worm 

 Mineola vaccinii Riley 



The cranberry fruit-worm is usually present in most bogs and 

 often causes serious loss, especially in the higher, drier bogs 

 which are not submerged during the winter. 



The parent moths have an expanse of about | inch ; the 

 front wings are ash-gray, mottled with black and white ; the 

 hind wings a uniform smoky gray. The moths fly during July 

 and deposit their thin, flat, nearly circular, scale-like, pale yel- 

 lowish eggs on the berries, most often at the calyx end. The 

 eggs hatch in about five days and after feeding on the outside 

 for a day or two the young caterpillar enters the berry through 

 a small hole usually near the stem, which it closes with a web 

 of silk. The caterpillar eats out the seed cavity and pulp of 

 the berry and then migrates to a second and sometimes to a 

 third or fourth berry before it becomes mature in late August 

 or in September. The injured berries color prematurely, 

 wither and drop from the vines. When full-grown the larva, 

 which is then about | inch in length and of a pale green color, 

 descends to the ground and there just below the surface con- 

 structs a silk-lined, sand-covered cocoon, within which it remains 

 in the larval state throughout the winter. In dry bogs pupa- 

 tion may occur as early as April, but where winter submergence 

 is practiced it does not, as a rule, take place till after the water 

 is drawn off in May. The moths emerge in July. 



