N. S. ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



General Description. 



In general the adults of the Fruit Worms are strong flying, some- 

 what sharp winged moths, from 1.25 to 1.5 inches across the extended 

 wings. The eggs are conical, ribbed vertically, with a small depression 

 on the top. The larvae are for the most part, green in the earlier stages, 

 sometimes faintly marked with white. The final stage may be any color 

 in X bethunci, the sixth stage larvae being slatey gray. In the Calocam- 

 pids the sixth stage larvae are heavily striped with brown; in some of the 

 Xylinids the final stage of the larvae is greenish white with white mark- 

 ings. 



Injury. 



The fruit worm larvae during the first three weeks of its existence 

 feeds on leaves and blossoms, eating proportionately more surface for a 

 meal than later when it is feeding on the fruit. During this period the 

 damage to the leaves is negligible, but the damage to the blossoms quite 

 extensive, as the young larvae have been observed eating the pistils, 

 stamens and corolla, but owing to the number of false blossoms always 

 present the actual percentage damaged cannot be determined. 



When the apples are a little thicker than a lead pencil the third stage 

 larvae begin feeding on them, eating small regular holes in the sides, 

 consuming a large quantity of inner pulp in proportion to the amount. of 

 surface eaten. As a rule a fresh apple is eaten into, for each meal. In 

 cases where the fruit worm eats through the outer pulp or what is tech- 

 nically the receptacle of the apple, and in to the core, serious malforma- 

 tion of the fruit usually results; in cases where the injury is confined to 

 the outer pulp, the injury heals out to form a somewhat regular rough- 

 ened area with very little or no malformation. It has been found by 

 actual count that 72 per cent of the apples eaten by fruit worms in the 

 spring drop, as a result of the injury; so, roughly speaking, for every 

 three apples found in picked fruit showing fruit worm injury, seven have 

 already dropped to the ground as a result of the injury. On the picked 

 fruit, which was No. 1 and No. 2 in size, and showed no defect excepting 

 fruit worm injury, 78 per cent was thrown into No. 3 and culls, in an 

 observation conducted to determine the actual injury. 



Distribution in Nova Scotia. 



Although the numbers of fruit worms vary slightly from year to 

 year, they are on the whole,fairly constant and evenly distributed in ev- 

 ery locality where apples are grown in Nova Scotia. An observation car- 

 ried on in one locality, with the idea of determining the amount of dam- 

 age done in various orchards, showed the most sheltered orchard in the 

 locality to have 8.2 per cent of the picked fruit injured by fruit worms, 

 while in the most exposed orchards 8 per cent of the picked fruit only, 



