CAPE COD CRANBERRY INSECTS 23 



The color of the spiracles helps to distinguish some of tJiese worms in their 

 later stages. The spiracles are the respiratory organs placed at intervals 

 along the sides of tlie body. They should he examined with a good lens. Tliose 

 of the armyworm and the black cutworm are blackish, those of the spotted 

 cutworm clear yellowish white rimmed with deep brown (fig. 21), those of 

 the blossom worm reddish brown to dark brown rimmed with dark brown, 

 those of the false armyworm yellowish white in the half-grown stages but dee]) 

 orange rimmed with deep brown as the worm matures, and those of the fall 

 armyworm pale brown with the rim dark brown. 



Spotted Cutworm. 



Fig. 21. Spiracle of caterpillar. 

 Much enlarged. 



False Armyworm. ^^ 



This worm is not known as a cranberry feeder elsewhere, but it has attacked 

 Cape Cod bogs for many years and probably ever since the industry began. 

 Some years it is hardly noticed, but sometimes it is one of the more important 

 pests, destroying all prospects of a crop on many bogs if it is not checked. 

 It never infests bogs on which tlie winter water is held till May 15, and sel- 

 dom harms strictly dry bogs^^ nnich. 



Distribution (m<l Food Plant.^-. 

 This insect ranges throughout tlie northeastern United States and southern 

 Canada, south to the District of Columbia and west to Nebraska and Alberta. 

 It attacks various weeds, grasses, iris, and apjile as well as cranberry. 



Chttrdcter of Jnjuri/. 

 The young worms often do great harm liy eating out the liearts of the ter- 

 minal buds (fig. 22) before new growth starts. They develop with the new 

 growth and feed more and more voraciously ujion it as they mature, de\ouring 

 leaves, buds and flowers with equal avidity and sometimes leaving little of the 

 new shoots but the stems, but seldom eating the old foliage much. Their work 

 is more like that of gypsy moth caterpillars than that of any other cranberry 

 pest. They feed freely in the daytime. 



Description and Seasonal Histori/. 

 The E(jg. 



The moths of both sexes winter^'' and the females lay about 600 eggs apiece 



33. Xylena nupera (Lint.). Heretofore known in cranberry literature as Calocampa nupera. 



34. The moths seem to prefer damp locations for egg-laying. 



35. These moths, especially the females, may be caught readily at honey baits on tree 

 trunks about the bogs in the milder nights of April. 



