72 PROTECTION OF PLANTS. 1916-17 



The moths as a rule fly at dusk or when the weather is cloudy, but may 

 be "flushed" by anyone walking through a meadow even in the sunlight. 

 When disturbed, the moths rise from the grass, fly forward for a rod or two, 

 and settle head downwards on a stalk of dried grass, where they quickly 

 arrange themselves parallel to the stalk. Their colours harmonize so well 

 with their surroundings, that one may be within a foot of you in plain sight 

 yet escape detection. They seem to have a special dislike to alighting on a 

 level surface and will fly for a considerable distance over cultivated land in 

 preference to resting on the bare ground. All our Crambidae are true grass- 

 loving moths. Our pastures and meadows during the months of June, July, 

 and August, are veritably alive with them: the lower moist meadows, as a 

 rule, breed more species than the higher well-drained fields. Indeed, the 

 Crambids are rarely seen away from the growing hay or pastures, and then 

 always over a patch of grass, as on the borders of a grove or a little-used 

 road through a wood. 



Life History 



All the caterpillars of our known species have been found to feed near 

 the roots or on the blades of growing grasses and sedges, and when these 

 are found in abundance they do not attack the grain or corn; although 

 zeelus and caliginosellus have been mentioned in the Economic Reports from 

 Illinois, Nebraska and Delaware as pests on corn, and hortuellus in the time 

 of S. H. Scudder wrought great havoc to the young runners of the cranberry 

 in the marshes of New England. 



The female moth drops her eggs at random on the grass. The egg is 

 oval in shape and marked by ten to twenty longitudinal ridges and numerous 

 transverse markings, which are probably imprinted on the freshly deposited 

 chorion of the egg's outer membrane by the cells of the oviduct. When first 

 dropped the eggs are creamy white or straw-colored in most of our species, 

 but in a short time they assume the deeper hues of brown, yellow or red. 

 In leachellus and innotatellus (perlellus) they become bright crimson shortly 

 before the caterpillars hatch. In size they vary in the different species and 

 even in the same species from .3 to .56 mm. in long diameter. The eggs 

 hatch in from five to thirty days. 



The caterpillar of most of our species on emerging from the egg is less 

 than half a line in length, the head is brown or black in colour, the thoracic 

 shield brown, green or red, and the body straw-coloured, relieved by black 

 or brown tubercles and a few scattered hairs. As a rule, it feeds at dusk or 

 in the early hours of the night, and during the hours of bright sunlight it 

 remains concealed in a nest which it spins on the blades or at the roots of the 



