154 Forty-ninth Report on the State Museum 



To aid in the identification of the moth the description by Mr. Grote 

 is transcribed, as it is much better than the original one by Dr. Clemens. 



Imago: A tiny blackish silky species resembling the European composi- 

 tella, but with only two white lines on the internal margin of the prima- 

 ries. Eight white costal marks disposed in pairs, crowded toward the 

 black apices and becoming straighter and shorter; the first pair more 

 oblique and divaricate. A silvery subterminal streak (not seen in certain 

 lights, according to Prof. Comstock) runs from opposite the cell over the 

 median nervules tapering to internal angle. Secondaries fuscous with 

 pale fringes. Beneatli iridescent, greenish in certain lights, with minute 

 white costal dots over the outer half of the wing. Body scales beneath 

 whitish. 



Figure 8 represents the insect in its several stages, after Osborn, and 



figure 9 a single wing, after Zeller. 



Life-history and Habits. 



The caterpillar — about one-fourth of an inch long when full-grown, 

 and of a dull greenish-white color, often becoming tinged with red 

 posteriorly as it approaches pupation — eats into the young florets 

 and later into the forming seed, causing the seed to blight 

 and shrivel up, as above described. The caterpillar is developed 

 from eggs that are deposited during the last of May and in 

 June, at the base of the head. It may be found nearly mature the last 

 of June eating into the florets of the lower part of the head, gradually 

 working upward with its growth, until the entire head may be ruined. 

 About the middle of July maturity is reached, and the white cocoons are 

 ■spun among the flowers; some of the caterpillars, however, descend to 

 the ground for pupation. Twenty to thirty days are passed in the pupal 

 stage, when the perfect insect emerges as a little brown moth, measuring 

 from three- to four-tenths of an inch in spread of wings, and marked with 

 eight short oblique white lines on the outer margin of the front wings, 

 and with two conspicuous longer white ones, oblique and somewhat 

 curved, on the inner margin. 



The moth has a pecuhar habit of performing, immediately after alight- 

 ing, two or three revolutions, the head being the pivot and the tip of the 

 abdomen describing a circle ; the movement is spirited and usually 

 reversed before coming to rest. 



Successive Broods of the Insect. 



A second brood of the caterpillars may be found feeding in the heads 



in August, and a third brood the last of September or in October, which 



hibernate as larvce in the crowns of the plants and tighter leaf-sheaths 



and other sheltered places close to the ground. In the latitude of Wash- 



