red maple, scrub oak, willow, wool grass, cotton grass, Juncus rush, lanccleaved 

 violet, swamp loosestrife, marsh St. John's'wort, bugle weed, saw brier, loose' 

 strife, gray birch, and bayberry, the twelve first-named being attacked most. 



Character of Injury 



Moderate infestations work much like the green spanworm, nipping off the 

 blossoms and small berries, but they attack the leaves more and chew into and 

 eat holes through the flower buds and often excavate the partly grown berries 

 much as katydids do. A severe infestation sometimes turns a whole bog brown 

 and then many of the worms die of starvation. 



This worm works so late in the season that when its attack is severe it 

 destroys all chances of a crop in the following year, and sometimes patches 

 of vines fail to recover fully for a year or two. 



Description and Seasonal History 



THE PUPA 



The pupae winter among the litter under the vines, enduring the winter 

 flood even when it is held till June. They arc brown and somewhat over three- 

 eighths of an inch long and have no cocoon. 



THE MOTH 



If the winter flood is let off before May 1 and the season is warm, a few of 

 the moths often appear late in May, but they usually emerge mostly during the 

 first half of June and are active till toward its end. Where the winter water 

 is held till late May they emerge mostly in late June and fly into July. They 

 are noticeably protandrous in emerging. The males fly freely, often swarming 

 in clouds over badly infested areas; but the females, heavy with eggs, can 

 only flop along the ground. 



The female (Plate Three, fig. 5) is a finely sprinkled grayish or yellowish 

 brown. The wings have vague and variable brown and whitish markings and 

 the hind ones much yellow also on their upper surfaces; and are mostly yellow 

 or yellow and white underneath with liberal general sprinklings of brown. On 

 both their upper and lower surfaces they usually have two or three poorly 

 defined and often more or less broken brown markings running from the front 

 to the hind margin. The back, especially between the bases of the wings, is 

 mostly dingy brown, and the scales on the under side of the body and on the legs 

 are mainly pale yellow. The antennae are threadlike. The wings spread nearly 

 an inch. 



The male (Plate Three, fig. 6) spreads somewhat over an inch. The body 

 and head above and the large bushy antennae are dingy brown with a sprink' 

 ling of pale yellow. Underneath, the body, head, and legs are clothed mostly 

 with light yellow hair and scales. The front wings are coffee brown above 

 with two or three indefinite and irregular darker brown markings running 

 from the front to the hind margin of each and often with touches of fwhite. 

 The hind wings are mostly deep yellow above with a strong general sprinkling 

 and three rather vague cross markings of brown and with the outer border 

 brownish. Beneath, the wings are deep yellow with a general sprinkling and 

 usually two irregular cross markings of brown. 



THE EGG 



The female moths lay about three hundred eggs each. They thoroughly hide 

 nearly all of them among the litter on the bog floor, mostly in irregular clus- 

 ters of sometimes as many as twenty (fig. 31). The eggs are elliptical and 

 about a twenty-seventh of an inch long. They are light green at first but turn 

 yellow. If the winter flood has been let off early, they usually begin to hatch 

 about July 1, but sometimes in advanced seasons by June 20. 



[40} 



