October, '10] QUAYLE: ORANGE TORTRIX 401 



lying prone upon the fruit itself working the mandibles and going 

 through all the movements of feeding. But if the surface tissue was 

 actually penetrated it was too small to be observed with a low power 

 lens. This habit of feeding on plant tissue is very common with the 

 Soft Brown Scale {Coccus hesperidum) parasite (Coccophagus lecanii) 

 and here very distinct feeding marks are left in the form of narrow 

 strips of the surface tissue gouged out. 



In a considerable number of specimens collected from various places 

 during the past three seasons no males have yet been taken. That 

 this species may reproduce parthenogenetically there is no doubt, for 

 a female just emerging was placed in a glass vial for two or three hours 

 and upon being liberated on a scale infested orange there was im- 

 mediately deposited beneath a scale an egg, which later hatched. 



THE ORANGE TORTRIX 



(Tortrix citrana Fernald) 

 By H. J. QuAYLE, Southern California Laboratory, Whitiier 



This insect was first described in 1889 by Professor C. H. Fernald^ 

 from specimens bred from oranges from southern California by 

 Mr. D. W. Coquillett.^ Complaints of it have occurred from time to 

 time since, but with the exception of occasional years, it has not 

 occurred in sufficient numbers to attract much attention. According 

 to Coquillett, considerable inquiry was made about the insect in 

 18942 and also again in 1898.^ 



During the season of 1909-10 this insect was the cause of no little 

 concern in certain sections of the southern California citrus belt. 

 It seemed to be most abundant in Los Angeles County from Glendale 

 to Pomona, very few being seen further east in the Riverside-Redlands 

 district. In some of the packing houses during the early part of the 

 shipping season the amount of wormy fruit ran between 5 and 10%. 



Coquillett states that " ordinarily it fives in a rolled or folded leaf, 

 upon which it feeds, but it also has the habit of burrowing into the 

 green oranges." This latter habit of burrowing into the fruit really 

 seems to be the most common. Very little evidence of rolled or 

 folded leaves was noticed in the infested groves and the worms kept 

 under observation in the laboratory seemed to attack the fruit in 

 preference to the leaves. 



1 Ent. Amer. Vol. V p. 18, 1889. 



2 Bull. 32, Div. Ent., U. S. D. A., p. 24, 1894. 



3 Bull. 18, New Series, Div. Ent. U. S. D. A., p. 99, 1898. 



