98 REPORT OF THE COMMISSIONER OF AGRICULTURE. 
trusty man. The moths began to appear about the middle of April, 
and up to May 27, 2,671 had been killed and counted. From May 28 
on a daily count was kept, and the moths issued in great numbers 
until nearly the end of August. The number caught and killed © 
altogether by Mr. DeLong’s assistant was 15,627, and the highest 
catch for a single day was 990 on June 15.* Jt transpired, moreover, 
in the discussion of this statement, that a large number of bats were 
accidentally shut into this same apple house and that doubtless 
many additional Codling Moths were killed by these insectivorous 
creatures. 
The accounts of the capture of the moths with baits of diluted vin- 
egar and molasses and with other similar substances and at light, 
which have occasionally appeared, are probably the results of mis- 
taken identity, as are also in all probability the accounts of the capt- 
ure of the moth by plants of the genus Physianthus, which have 
recently attracted much attention in New Zealand and California. 
The insect-catching properties of the flowers of the different species 
of Physianthus have long been known, but we very much doubt 
whether Codling Moths are ever extensively caught by these flowers, 
Dr. Le Baron observed the moths feeding upon moist sugar and slices 
of apple in confinement, but they have never been found frequenting 
flowers or feeding out-of-doors in a state of nature. Professor Riley 
has treated of the Physianthus plant in the Transactions of the Saint. 
Louis Academy of Science, vol. III, p. cxv, and in the American En- 
tomologist, vol. ITI, p. 75 (March, 1880), and we may add that he now 
states, after fifteen years’ experience with tuis plant, he has never found 
that it has captured a Codling Moth, even where grown close to apple 
orchards. Officially attention was called to this Physianthus matter 
by J. T. Campbell, United States consul at Auckland, New Zealand, 
who was interested in it through Dr. Cheeseman, of the Auckland 
Museum, with whom the various reports published the past summer 
by the Country Gentleman, Prairie Farmer, and other papers orig- 
inated. After receiving Mr. Campbell’s dispatch through the State 
Department we wrote him, urging him to make certain, in the first 
lace, that there were actual Codling Moths among those captured 
y the flowers, and,in the second place, if there were such, to ex- 
amine them carefully to determine whether they were males or 
females, and if the latter, whether they had oviposited. Mr. Camp- 
bell replied that, while he could state positively that the moths found 
in the flowers were Codling Moths, no examination had been made 
to determine sex or the relation of the time of capture to time of 
oviposition. We have since received a very large number of speci- 
mens from him, but among them not a single Codling Moth and not 
even a single Tortricid. All were unrecognizable Noctuids and Pyra- 
lids. It is proposed to train these vines up the trunks of apple trees 
with the surmise that the flowers, by capturing the moths, will pro- 
tect the crop. 
In summarizing the whole question of the possibility of attracting 
the moth we can not do better than quote the two following para- 
graphs from Professor Riley’s Fourth Report on the Inseets of 
Missouri, p. 27, as it so effectually answers the many published sug-. 
gestions to the effect that such remedies are practicable: 
“<T have elsewhere given it as my decided opinion that neither fires, 
lights, or bottles of sweetened water, vinegar, or of any other liquid, 
= Sar Official Rep. 2d Ann. State Cony. Cal. Fruit-growers, San Francisco, 1883, 
p..24, 
