LlFE-HlSTORY OF A COCHLIDIAN MOTH 13 



Adoneta bicaudata is remarkable for the lateness of emergence 

 of the adults, late July and early August being the time of flight. 

 One other species, Isochaetes beutenmuelleri Hy. Edwards, has 

 similar habits and a similar distribution. Northern New Jersey 

 and Staten Island N. Y., 27 seem to be the limits of their range 

 northward, and it is doubtful if they occur so far north in every 

 season. Their lives as larvae are as long as those of any other species, 

 namely about eight weeks, so that they are liable to be destroyed 

 by early frosts before maturing. After spinning their hard cocoons 

 on the ground or among dead leaves, they are immune to cold, 

 though pupation does not occur till the following spring. The 

 species is, of course, strictly single-brooded. 



The eggs are laid in groups of two to ten, overlapping, and placed 

 on the backs of the leaves. They are usually deposited in low 

 places, young red oak bushes in not too dense woods being the best 

 situation. None were found on the higher branches. At Tryon, 

 in 1904, all the larvae taken were on small red oak trees. In 1905 

 I took a larva near Washington (Rosslyn, Va.), also on red oak, 

 and a number at Tryon at the end of September on this tree, and 

 also on other plants, white oak and Ceanothus. The little larvae, 

 on hatching, separate, having no tendency to be gregarious. Their 

 first business is to molt, which they do within two days of hatching, 

 without having fed during the first instar. In the second stage 

 feeding begins. The young larvae, up to the fifth or sixth stage, 

 eat the lower epidermis and parenchyma of the leaf, cutti ig short, 

 scattered, irregular channels of about the width of their bodies. 

 They frequently change their feeding-place and pass readily from 

 one leaf to another, but of course cannot leave the tree on which 

 the eggs were deposited. When large enough, they begin to eat 

 the whole leaf from the end or side inward, as the other species 

 of Cochlidians do. The larvae, observed by me passed nine stages, 

 though they can, no doubt, mature in eight under more favorable 

 conditions. I was obliged to carry my larvae to northern New 

 York, where they were fed on yellow birch, oak not being available, 

 and were subjected to the rigors of an Adirondack climate. When 

 matured the larvae change color slightly and leave the tree to spin 

 their cocoons among dead leaves on the ground, wherein they pass 

 the winter in the prepupal stage. 



