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The Erythrina Twig-Borer (Terastia meticulosalis) in 
Hawali (Pyralidae, Lepidoptera). 
BY ©] Hi SWEZEY. 
(Presented at the meeting of February 2, 1922.) 
Terastia meticulosalis Guené, Delt. & Pyr., p. 212, 1854. 
Terastia subjectalis Led., Wien. ent. Mon., p. 480, 1863. 
Megaphysa quadratalis Walker, Cat., XXXIV, p. 1527. 
Megastes coeligenalis Hulst, Trans. Am. Ent. Soe., XIII, 156, 1886. 
Terastia meticulosalis, Hampson, Fauna of British India, Moths, IV, p. 381, 
1896. 
What appears to be this Pyralid moth, I have reared from 
pupae found in pods of the wiliwili tree (Erythrina mono- 
sperma). Three of these pupae were found in pods on a tree 
in Makaleha Valley, Oahu, January 8, 1922. The larvae had 
eaten the immature seeds and pupated within a cocoon partially 
within the remains of the skin of the seed. There were quite a 
good many pods on the tree which had matured and were hang- 
ing opened with the seeds exposed. Other pods were found in 
which the seeds had been eaten, besides the three which con- 
tained pupae. This is the first time that the wiliwili pods or 
seeds have been found eaten in this way, and the first record 
of this moth for the Hawaiian Islands. 
Hampson, in Fauna of British India, Moths, IV, 381, 1896, 
gives a description and figure, and the distribution as: St. 
Domingo; Honduras; Ceylon; Java; Philippines. He states that 
the “larva bores in young stems of Erythrina.” 
Fletcher, in Some South Indian Insects, p. 439, 1914, gives 
the distribution in South India as Bellary, Madras, and Coimba- 
tore. He says the larva “bores into terminal shoots and unripe 
seed-pods of Erythrina of various species.” 
In Proceedings of the Second Entomological Meeting at Pusa, 
India, 1917, I find it stated that “it is sometimes a serious pest, 
especially of Erythrina Indica, the larva boring in the young 
shoots so that all the new growth may be killed back.” 
Dyar, in Journal of the New York Ent. Soc., IX, 21, 1901, 
describes the larva from Erythrina herbacea in southern Florida, 
Proe. Haw. Ent. Soc., V, No. 2, September, 1923. 
