THE SQUASH-VINE BORER: THE MOTH AND THE LARVA. 59 



olivaceous brown; posterior wings, except the margin and nervures, hya- 

 line; tibiiie and tarsi of the hind legs densely fringed with fulvous and 



black hairs. Length of the body half an 

 inch. The wings expand one inch and 

 one-quarter." Later [Silliman^s Am. 

 Joti7\ Sci.-Ar(s,xxx\\, 1834, pp. 310-311) 

 Dr. Harris gives the following somewhat 

 fuller description : " The wings opaque, 

 lustrous olive-brown ; hind wings trans- 

 parent, with the margin and fringe brown ; 

 antennae greenish black; palpi pale yel- 



Fig. .'5.-Moth(amale)of tlieS(iuash-vine i with nlit-tlf^ hlnz-l- tuff- n^^ir tli^ t-/->ii- 



borer, Melittia cucurbitje, enlarged one- ^0\V, WXliX a little DiaCk tUIt near tllC tOp, 



half from uie natural size. thorax oUvc; abdomcn deep Orange, with 



a transverse basal black band, and a longitudinal row of five or six black 

 spots; tibiae and tarsi [shanks and feet] of the hind legs thickly fringed 

 on the inside with black and on the outside with long orange-colored hairs; 

 spurs covered with white hairs. Expands from thirteen to fifteen lines." 



In Dr. Harris' latest publication (Treatise on Insects Injurious to 

 Vegetation), only the more salient features of the moth are given. It is 

 referred to, as "conspicuous for its orange-colored body spotted with 

 black, and its hind legs fringed with long, orange-colored and lilack 

 hairs. The hind wings only are transparent, and the fore wings expand 

 from one inch to one inch and a half." The colors as given above are 

 subject to considerable variation. Mr. Hulst states : " The ordinary 

 orange color is more marked in the female than in the male. One female 

 had the body almost wholly black. In some specimens yellow takes the 

 place of orange, and in one fresh male the abdomen was almost white, 

 and the fringes of the legs, ordinarily orange, were very light yellow." 



Description of the Larva. 



In none of the editions of the Harris report is the caterpillar which 

 develops into the moth described — a strange omission, since it is in 

 this stage that it is met with by the squash-grower hundreds of times 

 more frequently than is the perfect insect — the popular remedy against 

 the insect being the cutting out of the caterpillar from the vine. In Dr. 

 Harris' Entomological Correspondence, ])ublished in 1869 (pages 284-5), 

 it is, however, described minutely, as follows : 



"Aug. 15, 1841 — Fully grown larva. Somewhat depressed, fleshy? 

 soft, tapering at each extremity ; segments ten in number, very distinct, 

 the incisions being deep; the eleventh or last segment minute, and hardly 

 distinct from the tenth. Head retractile, small, brown, 

 paler on the front, and with the usual V-hke mark on 

 it. First segment or collar, with two oblique brown 

 vineWerMili'SiTcuI marks on the top. Converging behind. A dark line, oc- 

 coRBiT.B. casioned by the dorsal vessel seen through the trans- 



parent skin along the top of the back, from the fourth to the tenth rings 



