THE LESSEH PKACII I'.OHEH. 33 



peach and apparent pi-oference for tliis tree over others hitherto 

 chosen, Quintance proposed for it the name of tlie lesser peach borer, 

 ;n distinction from the better known peach borer Sanninoidea 

 exitioHd Say. This name seems prefei-able to any of tlie otliers, and 

 more k)gical, because the peach is the most, important food plant 

 which it attacks at the present time. 



FOOD PLANTS; CHARACTER AND EXTENT OF INJURY. 



It has already been indicated that the lesser peach borer has more 

 than one food plant, a habit usual with the members of the family 

 to which it belongs. Bailey, in 1871), first found it on the (cultivated 

 plum. Two years later, in 1881, Kellicott found it attacking old plum 

 trees at Buffalo, N. Y., and also wild cherries {Primus .serotinus and 

 P. pennsylimnicus) . In 1891 the same author stated that, in addi- 

 tion to its favorite food plant, it also attacked wild black and red 

 cherries at Columbus, Ohio, and very probably would be found on 

 the cultivated cherry. Again the following year (1892) he bi-iefly 

 states that it attacks both cultivated and wild cherry in the same 

 locality of Oliio. In 18l)o AVebster reared the insect from the 

 black-knot fiuigus, PlowrUjlitia morhosa., on cherry and i)lum. 

 BeutenmiUler (1890), three j-ears later, gave (wo ndditiona! food 

 plants, juneberry { Amelanchier canadensis) and Uie beiicli plum 

 (Prunus maritima) . During the same year AVebstei- ( 189()) recordetl 

 it on peach. BeutenmiUler (1897) then added cliestnul, and in 

 1899 Lugger added Avild jdum, making the following known food 

 plants to date: Cultivated and wild plums and cherries, black-knot 

 fungus on plum and cherry, juneberry, beach ])lum, chestnut, and 

 peach. 



Kecent records of this Bureau show that this borer has a decided 

 preference for peach. For instance, in (Jeorgia where large plum 

 and peach orchards are grown side by side, an examination of each 

 kind of tree showed that it was common on the latter and scarce on 

 the former. AVe have been unable to find it numei-ous on wild jilum 

 and cherry in that State, nor have additioiuil food jdants been found. 

 In Maryland we have found (he larva in a knotty growth on peach 

 some 5 feet above the ground. Mr. AV. F. Fiske, of this Bureau, 

 reared adults from girdled chestnut trees {Castanea de7itata), at 

 Tryon, N. C., :May 28, 1904. 



The insect is evidently increasing on peach, and at present in cer- 

 tain localities causes costly and, in the case of individual trees, fatal 

 injury. Bailey (1879) records a fatal attack on a plum tree in New 

 York; and as an example of such concentrated attacks on individ- 

 ual trees in orchards mention may be made of tlie case of a nearly 

 girdled 3-year-old Greensboro peach tree in Georgia, from the slender 



