INSECTS. 87 



part of June and the month of July, these fruit-moths fly about 

 apple trees every evening, and lay their eggs on the young fruit. 

 They do not puncture the apples, but they drop their eggs, one by 

 one, in the eye or hollow at the blossom-end of the fruit, where the 

 skin is most tender. They seem also to seek for early fruit rather 

 than for the late kinds, which we find are not so apt to be wormy 

 as the thin-skinned summer apples. The eggs begin to hatch in a 

 few days after they are laid, and the little apple-worms or cater- 

 pillars produced from them immediately burrow into the apples, 

 making their way gradually from the eye towards the core. Com- 

 monly only one worm will be found in the same apple ; and it is 

 so small at first, that its presence can only be detected by the 

 brownish powder it throws out in eating its way through the eye. 

 The body of the young insect is of a whitish color ; its head is 

 heart-shaped and black ; the top of the first ring or collar and of 

 the last ring is also black ; and there are eight little blackish dots 

 or warts, arranged in pairs, on each of the other rings. As it grows 

 older its body becomes flesh-colored ; its head, the collar, and the 

 top of the last wing, turn brown, and the dots are no longer to be 

 seen. In the course of three weeks, or a little more, it comes to its 

 full size, and meanwhile has burrowed to the core and through the 

 apple in various directions. To get rid of the refuse fragments of 

 its food, it gnaws a round hole through the side of the apple, and 

 thrusts them out of the opening. Through this hole also the in- 

 sect makes its escape after the apple falls to the ground ; and the 

 falling of the fruit is well known to be hastened by the injury it 

 has received within, which generally causes it to ripen before its 

 time. 



Soon after the half-grown apples drop, and sometimes while they 

 are still hanging, the worms leave them and creep into chinks in 

 the bark of the trees or into other sheltered places, which they hol- 

 low out with their teeth to suit their shape. Here each one spins 

 for itself a cocoon or silken case, as thin, delicate, and white as tis- 

 sue paper. Most of the insects remain in their cocoons through 

 the winter, and are not changed to moths till the following summer. 

 The chrysalis is of a bright mahogany-brown color, and has, as 

 usual, across each of the rings of its hind body, two rows of prickles, 

 by the help of which it forces its way through the cocoon before 

 the moth comes forth. 



As the apple- worms instinctively leave the fruit soon after it falls 

 from the trees, it" will be proper to gather up all wind-fallen appleg 



