'338 Forty- SIXTH Report on the State Museum 



Podosesia syringse (Harris). 

 The Syringa Borer. 



This beautiful moth is generally so rare that it remains a desideratum 

 in the collections of some of our earnest collectors. That it may, at 

 times, multiply to an inconvenient extent is shown from a letter received 

 from Mr. John L. Lockwood, of New York city, who, sending examples 

 of the larvae in their burrows for identification, asks for some method 

 by which he va^j arrest the attack, as all of his lilacs are being 

 destroyed. 



Possibly the insect is becoming more numerous, since, no longer con- 

 fining itself to Syringas, it is multipl3ang in ash trees. Dr. Kellicott 

 has " watched twenty or more [of the moths] emerging from an 

 [ash] tree in a single day; and often a hundred or more Avere in a single- 

 tree." This was in Buffalo [Ento^nologica Americana, i, p. 177). Rev. 

 Mr. Hulst records it {Bull. Brooklyn Entomolog. Society, v, 1882, p. 

 17) as so abundant in the English ash, in Brooklyn and the vicinity, 

 that the tree is being rapidly exterminated. He had seen trees which 

 were " completely riddled with the holes made by the larvae and had 

 •died from the effects." Professor H. Osborn has also observed the 

 larvffi boring in young shoots of ash trees, iu Ames, Iowa. It appears 

 ^o be a local insect, as are also several of the Sesiaclw. 



Carpocapsa pomonella {Linn.). 

 The Codling Jfoth. 



A correspondent from Malcom, Seneca county, N. Y., Mr. Malcom 

 Little, writing November 4th, has sent a section of an apple containing 

 a larva within its burrows, with the statement that it has done great 

 damage to apples this autumn, in that, while not penetrating deeply, it 

 greatly disfigures the fruit. 



The calyx end of the apple received, had been eaten out into irregular 

 ■open channels filled with rounded black excremental pellets, extending 

 in one direction to more than a half-inch from the center of the calyx, 

 but not penetrating deeper than its base. The calyx has the moderate 

 depression of three-tenths of an inch below the apex. 



The larva is at this time, November 6th, apparently full grown and 

 •quite sluggish in its movements, as if about to prepare for pupation. 

 In its pink color and structural characters, I find no difference in it from 

 rthe ordinary apple-worm of the codling-moth. 



