brier, apple, hardback, chokeberry, coarse bramble, winterberry, St. John's'wort, 

 sweet pepperbush, swamp blueberry, sheep laurel, loosestrife, sweet mclilot, willow. 

 and aster. Loosestrife and marsh St. John's-wort are favorite food plants of the 

 insect (figs. H and I) and, when abundant, probably induce infestations by it. 

 It is also sometimes a rose pest in greenhouses. l*^ 



Description and Seasonal History 



THE WORM 



The worms appear on the bogs about the first of June. They mature in late 

 June or early July and pupate in early or mid-July. The moths emerge during the 

 last half of July or early in August. They lay their eggs late in July and early 

 in August. The eggs hatch in about ten days. The worms grow slowly, sometimes 

 enter berries, and are found in steadily decreasing numbers till the first of 

 September, when the last disappear. They are then less than a third grown. 

 They may winter in trash on the bog floor. 



The small worms are yellowish white with brown heads. As they grow, the 

 head becomes amber and the body for a time may be somewhat reddish. As they 

 mature (Plate One, fig. 7), the head changes to rather light reddish brown and the 

 body becomes more or less olive green on the back and sides, with conspicuous 

 and somewhat elevated white spots along the whole length and usually one pale 

 hair rising from each spot. They grow to be fully three-quarters of an inch 

 long and pupate among the webbed uprights. 



THE PUPA 



The pupa is about half an inch long and mostly chestnut brown, but its back 

 is somewhat darker, being almost black toward the front. There is a prominent 

 transverse ridge at the head end, and several rows of small backwardly directed 

 teeth run across the top of the abdomen. Some of the pupae squirm vigorously 

 when disturbed, but they are more often inactive. 



THE MOTH 



The moth (Plate One, fig. 1) expands about three-fourths of an inch. It is 

 brown with two chocolate-colored stripes crossing each forewing diagonally, one 

 near the middle and the other shading the tip. 



THE EGG 



The eggs are minute, circular, and flat and partly overlap one another, being 

 laid in flat shiny masses of one hundred to one hundred and fifty. They are 

 lemon yellow at first, but later become orange; and as they near hatching, the 

 brown heads of the worms show plainly through the shells. 



Treatment 

 The worms are seldom noticed much before they mature, and as they rarely do 

 serious harm it seldom pays to treat them. Complete flooding for thirty hours 

 about June 6 and dusting with 40 pounds of cryolite to the acre in mid-June 

 are good controls. 



CUTWORMS 



These worms may be distinguished from all others found on cranberry bogs 

 by their possession of a median internal organ in front of the bases of the 

 forelegs which may be extruded by squeezing the fore part of the body (fig. J). 

 They feed openly, never webbing the vines. They are one and a half to two 

 inches long when mature, and without noticeable hair. They feed mostly at night, 

 usually hiding during the day among the vines or in the litter on the bog floor 

 or under pieces of board if such are present. They all belong to the same 



18 Mich. Agr. Expt. Sta. Spec. Bui. 314, p. 75, 1931. 



£21] 



