158 MANUAL OF VEGETABLE-GARDEN INSECTS 



potato, tomato, eggplant, pepper, corn, bean, rhubarb, spinach, 

 cauhflower, flahha, aster, chrysanthemum, lily, hollyhock, 

 golden glow, peony, sunflower, castor bean and several other 

 ornamental plants. Their wild food plants include ragweed, 

 great ragweed, cocklebur, burdock and pigweed. Wheat, 

 rye, barley, blue-grass and timothy are sometimes attacked 

 as well as the tender shoots of raspberry, blackberr}^ currant 

 and gooseberry. 



The insect passes the winter in the egg stage on the stalks 

 of such plants as ragweed, dock, pigweed and burdock. The 

 egg is :5V inch in diameter, brownish gray, globular, slightly 

 flattened and with numerous ridges radiating from the tip. 

 The eggs hatch in late May or early June and the young cater- 

 pillar begins feeding on the first suitable plant that it finds. 

 It may first feed as a miner in the leaves for a few days and then 

 burrow into the stem. Ragweed, pigweed, blue-grass and 

 timothy, as well as wheat and other grains, are often attacked 

 by the young larvae. Many of these plants are soon killed and 

 the caterpillars then migrate to other plants. It usually hap- 

 pens that the young larvae get their start in the rank weeds 

 surrounding the field or garden and when forced to migrate 

 in search of fresh food attack the cultivated crops. It has 

 often been noticed that corn is most subject to infestation along 

 the edge of the field and that other crops, such as potatoes and 

 tomatoes, are more liable to injury when grown in small gardens 

 than when planted in large open fields. In New York the cat- 

 erpillars usually attract most attention by their injuries to 

 garden plants from the middle of June to the last of July. The 

 caterpillar until the next to the last molt is dull brown, the head, 

 cervical and anal shields honey-yellow, smooth and shining, 

 with a black stripe on each side of the head and on each side 

 of the cervical and anal shields. Each end of the body is 

 grayish brown with a white dorsal stripe and two white stripes 

 on each side. The integument is apparently thinner from the 



