37 



naturally feeds upon our native haws or thorn-apples and probably 

 upon our native crabs also, and which I know to have existed in the 

 State of Illinois for at least five or six years.* In the Eastern States, 

 from unexplained causes, it has within the last few years acquired the 

 habit of attacking the cultivated apple, as well as the wild haw, and 

 has, by the laws of inheritance, transmitted that habit to its descend- 

 ants, who ]ia\e reveled in tlie foreign delicacy, and increased and mul- 

 tiplied at a prodigious rate, till they have become almost an unbear- 

 able nuisance. In Illinois, on the contrary, so far as I can learn, the 

 species has never yet acquired this peculiar habit, and perhaps may 

 never do so. But there can be little doubt that the descendants of 

 the improved and highly-civilized apple-maggots in the East will, in 

 process of time and by slow degrees, spread gradually to the West; 

 or they may be suddenly introduced in a barrel of Eastern apples into 

 some point at the West, and thence radiate in all directions and col- 

 onize the country. What is very remarkable, the species is new to 

 science, and was briefly descriljed by myself for the first time in the 

 American Journal of Horticuliure for December, 1867 (pp. 338 — 343.) 

 How I obtained the requisite facilities for investigating its history, 

 and what is its peculiar mode of operating upon the apple-crop in the 

 East, I will now proceed to explain. 



The following paragraph appeared in the Circular of the Oneida 

 Community ( November 12, 1860.) published at Wallingford, Connec- 

 ticut; and shortly afterwards, at my request, the Editor was kind 

 enough to send me several specimens of the larvae. 



"Two months ago we were congratulating ourselves on a fair crop 

 of winter apples. To all appearance they were freer from worms than 

 we had known them in this section for years. But alas ! our hopes 

 are again blasted. Although the apple-worm (the larva of the Cod- 

 ling Moth, Carpocapsa pomonella) is not so numerous as in some sea- 

 sons, the apple-maggot seems to be as prolific as ever. Two weeks ago 

 we overhauled two hundred and fifty bushels of apples, that we had 

 gathered and placed in store for winter use, and of that number we 

 threw out fifty bushels, most of which had been rendered worthless, 

 EXCEPT EOE CIDER or hogs, by one or the other of the above-named in- 

 sects; and still the work of destruction goes on. Tlie apple-worm 

 by this time has ceased his work, or nearly so, but the depredations of 



*The scientific reader will, perhaps, like to know that^ after I had pub- 

 lished in the Journal of Horticulture the fact, that the species bred by my- 

 self tive or six years ago, from Illinois haws, was identical with that bred in 

 1866 — 7 from apples received from the East, I sent a specimen of the former 

 to Baron Osten-Sacken, and he found it be undistinguishable from a speci- 

 men of the latter which I had previously sent him. 



