112 SIXTH ANNUAL REPORT 



essentially the same as that of the lepidoptereous root-borers of the 

 Peach and Grape.* 



Major Muhleraan thus communicates his experience with this 

 borer : 



It was in 1870, from July to September, that I first captured the 

 moth, sometimes resting on the leaves and at other times leisurely 

 flying about the blackberry bushes. At that time I had not noticed 

 the effects of its work, though I had heard and read about the '" win- 

 ter-kill " of Lawton blackberries. In the spring following, viz. 1871, 

 I found my bearing canes almost all dead, and during the summer of 

 the same year noticed more moths, I then suspected it was that moth 

 or its worm that caused the " winter-kill." In the spring of 1872 the 

 last year's canes were again dead, and I determined to get, if possible, 

 at the truth of the matter ; I mox^ed the canes all down and then dug 

 out the stools, cut them open lengthwise, and found the trace of the 

 insect in every one; the result of my investigation was as follows : I 

 found that the young worm upon hatching entered the growing cane 

 at a place about 4, 5 and 6 inches above the ground, then worked 

 downward, so that at the approach of winter it found itself in the 

 roots, where it remained all winter; in the spring the half-grown 

 worm then ascended through some other cane than the one in which 

 it went down ; at the height of about 4 inches above the ground I 

 found several larvae in different stages of growth, from | of an inch 

 to a full inch in length, the anterior portion of the worm invariably 

 upward ; this was in the latter part of April, for at the May meeting 

 of the Alton Horticultural Society, I took a bundle of those roots 

 with me to exhibit. I found at the height of 6 inches larger holes, 

 evidently those of exit in old canes, with particles of the pupa shell 

 in the orifice. I also believe that the insect is preyed upon by a para- 

 site, as in some old canes I found some whole pupa with the hole of a 

 parasite. 



Mr. Muhleman found that they were more inj urious to his Lawtons 

 than to his Kittatinuies. 



Mr. Theodore Engelmann, Mascoutah, Ills., has also had-some sad 

 experience with this borer, and very natually inferred, as he writes 

 me, that it was the same insect that infests peach roots, for the reason 

 that his raspberries were close to the site of an old peach orchard 

 that had been ruined by borers. The inference was, however, very 

 erroneous, and raspberries might be surrounded with peach trees in- 

 fested with borers without receiving any injury from the same, and 

 vice versa; for the two borers are specifically distinct, and the one 

 never feeds on the food-plants of the other. 



The worm attains an inch or more in length, is of a pale-yellow 

 color, with dark, reddish-brown head. It dwells mostly in the root, 

 but its burrow often extends several inches above ground. The moth 

 (Fig. 30, a^<^ ; h, 2) has the front wings heavily bordered with rusty- 

 brown, and the body prettily marked with yellow and black, and 



*Keps. I, p. 48; HI, \>, 75. 



