THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 27 



Curculio, will find it just the thing needed; while those who have hogs to 

 feed will find it pay to boil the fruit and feed it. 



Fires, Lights, Bottles of Liquid as Eemedies. — I have elsewhere giv- 

 en it as my decided opinion that neithei- fires, lights or bottles of sweetened 

 water, vinegar or of any other liquid, can be used with any degree of suc- 

 cess in fighting the Codling moth, and I have good reasons for so doing. 

 During one whole summer, three years ago, I had a patent moth catcher, 

 constantly in a garden surrounded by several old apple trees badly infested 

 with this insect, and I never caught a single specimen of Carpocapsa pomo- 

 nella. The trap was made of bright tin^ with an inverted cone so placed in 

 a basin that I could attach a light, and fill the basin with sweetened fluid. 

 Again, during the summer of 1870, I was in the habit of working till late at 

 night in an office surrounded by apple orchards known to be badly infested. 

 I worked by the aid of two large kerosene lamps, each having a strong re- 

 flector, and the light in the room was so bright as to form a constant subject 

 of conversation among the neighbors. Lisects of one kind and another 

 would fly into the room by hundreds, and on certain warm, moist evenings 

 would beat against the windows with such rapidity as to remind one of the 

 pattering of rain. Yet during that Avhole summer I caught but one or two 

 Codling moths in that room, and there was more reason to believe that they 

 had bred in the house than that they were attracted from without. At the 

 same time I had hung up in an orchard close by, many wide-mouthed bottles, 

 half-filled with various liquids, such as diluted syrujj, sugar water, and vine- 

 gar more or less diluted. Every two or three days these bottles would contain 

 great numbers of insects, which were critically examined. Many of them 

 wou.ld be small moths of one kind and another; some of them larger moths 

 known to be injui-ious, and many other insects — such as beetles, true bugs, 

 wasps and two-winged flies — that were beneficial. Indeed, there were al- 

 most as many beneficial as injurious species, and as I shall presently 

 show, the only two species yet known to prey on Carpocapsa pomonella, 

 Avere among the more numerous victims of these hanging bottles. From 

 my notes I find that but three Codling moths were caught in these bot- 

 tles during the summer. Indeed, so small is the proportion of Codling 

 moths which I have caught by the above mentioned pi'ocess, that the 

 chances of their accidentally flying into such situations are about as great 

 as of their being attracted. I might add further experience on this head, 

 but it is unnecessary'. Upon showing specimens of the Codling moth to 

 many dozens of eminent and intelligent fruit-groAvers, who have had to do 

 with, apple orchards, and consequently with ait})le worms, most of their lives, 

 I have seldom found one who did not candidly confess that he had never be- 

 fore identified the insect; and under these circumstances it is not surprising 

 that other similar moths should have been mistaken for the genuine ar- 

 ticle. The moth is, therefore, occasionally caught in such traps, and iii 

 the face of other intelligent testimony the tUct cannot be denied, thougli 

 the experience on this head of non-entomologists is conflicting. But 

 Avhether we consider that the few so caught are really attracted, or are 



