TEAS. rEA MOTH. 163 



PEAS. 



Pea Moth. Gmpholithti insanu, Guence. 



1, Caterpillar on Pea ; 2, caterpillar magnified ; 3 and 4, moth, nat. size and mag. 



The caterpillars of this moth cause the " worm-eaten " or 

 "maggotty " Peas often found in old pods when the crop is 

 maturing with the insides eaten away, and partly filled with, 

 and partly surrounded by, the excrement left by the cater- 

 pillar. 



These caterpillars or maggots are fleshy and slightly hairy, 

 about or somewhat more than a quarter of an inch in length, 

 and are generally yellowish in colour, with a black head, a 

 brown band on the ring next to the head, and eight brown 

 dots on most of the following rings. They sometimes, how- 

 ever, vary in colour ; in some specimens the head and the 

 next ring are brown, and in some they are intensely black. 

 The legs on the three rings next to the head are black. 



The caterpillars go down into the earth to change, where 

 they spin a cocoon (that is, a kind of egg-shaped covering 

 formed of silken threads drawn from the mouth) in which they 

 remain till spring, when they turn to chrysalids, out of which 

 the moths appear in June. 



The moths are rather more than half an inch in the spread 

 of the wings, satiny, and mouse-coloured. The upper wings 

 have a row of very short white streaks directed backwards 

 from the front edge, and have a silvery oval ring with five 

 short black lines inside it placed near the hinder margin. 



Although maggotty Peas are one of the commonest of 

 infestations, the attack appears to be so little thought of that 

 enquiry is very rarely made about it. I have therefore merely 

 given above the short notice of the moth and its method of 

 causing the infestation published by John Curtis in his ' Farm 

 Insects,' and below some of the methods of prevention of 



M 2 



