August, '22] 



herrick: maple case bearer 



285 



Jieavily infested and show marked injury. Owners complain of the 

 falling off of their groves in production during the last two or three 

 years. 



Life History 



Practically nothing is known of the life history and habits of this 

 case-bearer except the notes made by Fitch on 

 the larvae after they had formed their cases. 

 The insect passes the winter as a pupa in its case 

 on the ground among the fallen leaves. Here at 

 Ithaca, in our breeding cages, the moths issued 

 through the middle and latter half of May , begin- 

 ning May 1 1 and continuing up to May 23. At 

 Deposit, N.Y., I found the moths in great abund- 

 ance on May 30, 1922, and many eggs had al- 

 ready been deposited by them. W. T. M. Forbes 

 took the moths on May 17, 1922, at Tren- 

 ton, N. Y. 



The moth has a complicated extrusory ovipos- 

 itor (Fig. 10) with which she deposits her eggs in 

 tiny pear-shaped pockets in the tissues of the 

 leaves just beneath the lower epidermis. 

 The moth rests on the underside of the 



Fig. 10. Ovipositor of 

 Paraclemensia acerifoliella, 

 dorsal view. 



leaf with her abdom.en bent forward beneath the body and with the 

 tip pointing forward. With her body as a fulcrum she bores a 



tiny circular hole through the epidermis 

 and forms a pear-shaped pocket in the 

 tissues. In the larger end of this she 

 places her egg (Fig. Tl). The egg is 

 soft, white, and elliptical, and mea- 

 sures about .45 mm. in length, .34 mm. 

 in width and .24 mm. in thickness. It 

 probably hatches in about one week, 

 for on June 16, 1921, the larvae were 

 in great numbers in the leaves and nearly 

 ready to desert their mines, which many 

 of them began to do the next day, the 

 17th. When the egg hatches the young 

 larva begins at once to mine in the tissues 

 of the leaf and continues to live as a 

 miner for probably about 10 days. In general the mines are irregularly 

 linear although each one tends to enlarge somewhat towards the terminus 



Fig. 11 Egg of Paraclemensia 



ncerifoliellain apocket on the under 



side of a leaf. 



