Dec, '07J ENTOMOLOGICAL NEWS. 415 



leaves. As the larvae spin a carpet of silk wherever they go, 

 this also aids in keeping the tube effectually sealed and in 

 preventing the opening of the growing leaf. These hibernating 

 larvae vary greatly in size, and moult at least once before the 

 last larval stage is reached. After taking possession of a 

 leaf, the lower portion of the leaf-tube rapidly fills up with 

 corky frass particles, in which the cocoon is spun, the larva 

 having previously cut two holes through the leaf wall, — a large 

 one above for the emergence of the moth, and by burrowing 

 down in the frass-filled tube, a small one some distance below 

 the location chosen for the cocoon, this second hole being 

 apparently for drainage; just above this drainage hole and 

 between it and the cocoon, the tube is sealed with a lightly 

 spun web, usually not too closely-spun to retain the water 

 (see Plate XV). The small hole where the larva entered the 

 leaf, unless obliterated by feeding or plugged with the ac- 

 cumulated frass, is usually closed with a web. The larva 

 sometimes changes from the old leaf to a new one, and when 

 this occurs just before pupation, unlike scmicrocca, it eats 

 enough of the new leaf to furnish frass and nibbled particles 

 to render the cocoon opaque ;' usually, however, the cocoon is 

 composed of the corky frass particles loosely held together 

 with silk, and is built against one side of the tube, the leaf- 

 wall on that side forming one wall of the cocoon. All the 

 pupae of a midsummer brood examined in Richmond County, 

 X. C, in 1903, were pale amber color; of several hundred 

 pupae under observation at Summerville, S. C, this spring, 

 nearly all were very dark, some even almost black. The same 

 variation in color of pupae was noted in scmicrocca, so the 

 dark pupae may be characteristic of the spring broods. 



The pupa of ridingsii is similar to that of semicroccct, illus- 

 trated by Riley, but the cone-shaped projection over the head 

 is much larger in the former species (Plate XV, upper fig- 

 urcs, ridingsii, lower figures scmicrocca). In ridingsii the 

 pupal stage lasts ten to twelve days, emergence taking place 

 in the daytime, usually between twelve and four o'clock. The 

 pupa sometimes forces itself through the top of the cocoon 

 before the escape of the moth. Pupation of the spring brood 



