112 



THE AMERICAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



APPLE WORMS. 



(('(irpocupsn jiomoiidhi, Linn.) 



Almost every one who is in the habit of eating 

 raw apples must have repeatedly noticed the 

 little whitish worm, which is so often found bur- 

 rowing at tlie core of the fruit, and filling it Avith 

 its disgusting excrement. Hut probably not one 

 fruit-grower out of a hundred has ever seen the 

 little moth which is produced from this worm , and 

 which, in its turu, gives birth to a fresh geuera- 

 1 ion of such worms. In the annexed tio-uro, a 



li w till luuowmgs ot thi- \\nini 111 < lu\i 

 / iIk point ^\lltlell tfltcts it- cnti m c r the j 

 lii\Mt>fll ol lli( ntfui d -i/c when lull ^lown j 

 / 111 Ik lit 1 lit ol Its bod\ m i^nufied rl the j 

 I 111 I til ) 111 iiid / mill / the ])( lift! moth ! 



will hi li iiii_m-,h iblcliom ill otliei motli-> b\ ; 



I 1 ii 1 M uiiii h d loppei (. iks at tin lip of i 



II h 111 \Mii_ In J n.,liMi this moth I- \aii \ 

 11 1 1 11 \Mi 1- till \pplt woim "Moth, 01 the 



t 11 11, woim Moth but tlKK i-onU (111 ncn 1 

 titi ui i.ittin nunc Un it Like most ot oiii i 

 woi>t insect toes, it wa- oii_,inilh ideni/(nof ! 

 the OldAVorld, having been introduced into this 

 country only about the beginning of the present 

 century. Twenty years ago it Avas unknown in 

 Illinois; and it is only within the last eight or ; 

 ten years that it has penetrated into Iowa. 



The Apple-worm Moth make's its first appear- 

 ance in North Illinois from the last of iMay to the 

 forepart of June, and a little earlier or later ac- 

 cording to the season and the latitude. Usually, 

 at the time it appears, the young apples are j 

 already set, and beginning to be about as large I 

 as a liazel-nut. After coupling in the usual 

 manner, the female moth then proceeds to de- 

 posit a single egg in the blossom end (h) of the 



fruit, flying from fruit to fruit until licr stock of 

 eggs (amounting to probably two or three 

 hundred) is exhausted. Not long after accom- 

 plishing this process she dies of old age and 

 exhaustion. In a very few cases the egg is do- 

 posited in the hollow at the stalk end of the 

 fruit, or simply glued on to the smooth surface 

 of its check. In a short time afterwards the egg, 

 no matter where it is located, hatches out, and 

 the young larva forthwith proceeds to burrow 

 into the flesh of the apple, feeding as he goes. 

 but making his head-quarters in the core. Jn 

 three or four weeks time it is full grown, and 

 >hortly before this the infested apple generally 

 falls to the ground. The lan'a tlien crawls out 

 of the fruit through a large hole in the cheek, 

 which it has bored several days beforehand for 

 that express purpose (as shown in the figure), 

 and usually makes for the ti-unk of the tree, up 

 which it climbs, and spins around itself a silken 

 cocoon of a dirty white color, in any convenient 

 crevice it can find, the crotch of the tree being a 

 favorite spot. Here it transforms into the pupa 

 state; and, towards the latter end of July or the 

 forejiart of August, bursts forth in tlie Moth 

 state. We hav(^ noticed that a larva will occa- 

 sionally spin its cocoon on the under surface of 

 some board lying flat on the ground, instead of 

 climbing the tree in the usual manner. 



The whole of the above process is now I'C- 

 peated by this second generation of Moths; but, 

 the ajiples being now very much larger, not near 

 so many of them fall to the ground thifiugh the 

 internal injury inflicted by the insidious little 

 Apple-worms. A large part of them, in fact, 

 bang on the trees till they are ready to be har- 

 vested, and in many of them the worms may 

 still be found even up to the begiuning of the 

 winter. Those larv.'e that leave the apples be- 

 fore they arc harvested dispose of themselves in 

 the same manner as the larv;r belonging to the 

 first or spring brood. Those that remain in the 

 apples till they are barreled up almost invariably 

 make their way out in the course of the autumn, 

 and spin their cocoons under the hoops of the 

 barrel, or in any suitable cracks they can find in 

 the .staves. In a single apple-barrel, which we 

 broke up in the spring for this express purpose, 

 we once found about two hundred such cocoons. 

 But wherever this second brood of larva; spins 

 its cocoon— whether on the tree, under some 

 loose board, or under the hoops of a barrel — it 

 always lies in its cocoon, in the larva state, all 

 through the winter without eating anything, ami 

 never transforms into the pupa state till the be- 

 ginning or middle of the following May. It is 

 from this generation of pupa^ that the early brood 



