The Curculio and Codling Bloth. 259 



wings, of a brown color, edged with copper ; they do not 

 extend their wings more than seven-eighths of an inch ; they 

 are very lively at night, and entirely at rest in the day time, 

 from which I infer that they fly only at night. I have never 

 been able to find one upon the trees. After the egg is 

 hatched, the worm eats to the centre of the apple, and then 

 out at the side, and are the cause of the wind-falls, or moth- 

 falls. I saved a number of apples by placing a piece of bees- 

 wax over the eye ; but the plan, for practical purposes, is to 

 syringe the fruit with whitewash ; this will fill the eye, and 

 thus prevent the moth from laying her egg. I am happy to 

 state, that I discovered a trap for the larvas of this insect, by 

 which an orchard can be cleared of them with little labor. 

 Noticing two or three of the larvae creeping upon a piece of 

 cotton cloth which was thrown accidentally into the crotch of 

 an apple tree, my curiosity led to further examination, and to 

 my surprise and pleasure, I found thirty of the larva3 in their 

 silken homes, going through their chrysalis state. They 

 knit the folds of cloth together with silken ties, and there 

 quietly change from the loathed worm to the perfect insect, 

 which is perhaps as beautiful, under a microscope, as any 

 production of the insect tribe. I again placed the cotton cloth 

 in the crotch of the tree, and examined it in three Aveeks, and 

 found another encampment of them in the same state, and 

 hence concluded they were quite in my power with very 

 little labor. The cloth should be placed in the tree about 

 the 25th of June, and should be examined every three 

 weeks, as it requires about this time to go through the 

 chrysalis state ; in one or two seasons they must be des- 

 troyed if this operation should be followed up. They find 

 their silken web very readily attach to the little fibres of 

 cotton, and by tying the cotton cloth to the tree the wind 

 will not disturb them. 



There is still another insect which does some damage to 

 the foliage and fruit of trees. The perfect insect is a long, 

 dark, slender fly, with long feelers and two stearers behind ; 

 they were found on the trees as early as the 15th of March, 

 mating ; they lay their eggs in the young bud ; as soon as it 



