236 JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY [Vol. 15 



ties were kept in cages and were fed egg masses, which they consumed 

 entirely. No Hymenopterous parasites were reared from larvae or 

 eggs. 



President Arthur Gibson: The final paper in the series is by 

 Mr. E. P. Felt. 



THE EUROPEAN CORN BORER IN NEW YORK STATE^ 



By E. P. Felt, Slate Entomologist, Albany, N. Y. 



The exceptionally severe and wide spread injury by the com ear 

 worm, Chloridea obsoleta Fabr. , . has been particularly unfortunate 

 in that it has attracted general attention to a passing phenomenon and 

 thus in considerable measure obscured a really serious problem. 



It happens that the European Com Borer, Pyrausta nubilalts Huhn., 

 has as yet caused relatively little damage in New York State, though 

 there has been appreciable injury to comparatively small plantings. 

 The development of the last few years make it impossible to be certain 

 as to the cause for this comparative immimity. The exceptionally 

 thorough and general clean up in the eastern infested area in the spring 

 of 1919 presumably had an important effect upon the abundance of 

 the borers and even yet the pest is not numerous in that section, a 

 fifteen per-cent stalk infestation being near the maximum. This work 

 was on an exterminative basis, consequently no checks were left. 



There was in the western part of New York State a thorough clean 

 up during the fall of 1920 and the spring of 1921 by the Federal Govern- 

 ment in the more badly infested section, centering on Silver Creek. 

 Examinations and comparisons the past summer showed little differ- 

 ence between the cleaned up areas and the conditions on the nearby 

 Indian Reservation where a forty per-cent stalk infestation was not 

 difficult to find. There is no question but what the clean up destroyed 

 hosts of borers. It is possible that climatic conditions were exception- 

 ally favorable and enabled the few remaining insects to transform and 

 deposit a maximum number of eggs and thus offset in considerable 

 measure the beneficent results which should follow general clean up work. 

 It has been suggested that the operations may have been nullified 

 to a considerable extent by moths drifting from another badly infested 

 area. This must be considered simply as a possibility and as yet not 

 even the probability has been established. 



iSome of the data given in this paper have been secured by the writer in his 

 capacity as Collaborator, Bureau of Entomology, U. S. Department of Agriculture. 



