BULLETIN OF THE 



No. 113 



Contribution from the Bureau of Entomology, L. O. Howard, Chief 

 August 22, 1914, 



(PROFESSIONAL PAPER.) 



THE LESSER BUD-MOTH. 



By E. W. Scott and J. H. Paine, 

 Entomological Assistants, Deciduous Fruit Insect Investigations. 



INTRODUCTION. 



During the spring of 1912, while engaged in apple spraying experi- 

 ments at Benton Harbor, Mich., the senior author noticed the work 

 of a small larva in the buds of unsprayed apple trees. The injury 

 inflicted by this minute insect was quite severe in a neglected orchard 

 near the laboratory, and this insect, among others, was the most 

 important factor in the destruction of the entire crop of fruit. From 

 the character of the injury, the attack on the swelling buds, and the 

 tying together of the growing leaves the damage was at once at- 

 tributed to the eye-spotted bud-moth (Tmetocera ocellana Schiff.). 



In 1913 a study was made of the life history and habits of this 

 insect, supposedly the eye-spotted bud-moth, and experiments were 

 tried with remedial measures. The first discrepancy noticed between 

 the habits of this insect and those of the eye-spotted bud-moth, as 

 stated in literature, Avas the fact that the hibernaculse were not neces- 

 sarily situated near the buds, but were to be found in any suitable 

 place upon the limbs. Following this, many other even more strik- 

 ing differences in habits were noted during the course of the season, 

 and the fact was soon impressed upon the writers that they had to 

 deal with an insect whose economic importance had not been recorded 

 in the United States. 



The adult moths, upon submission to Mr. August Busck, of the 

 Bureau of Entomology, were identified as Recurvaria cratcegella 

 Busck (1903), 1 a species described by him (with no indication of its 

 life history) in 1903 from material submitted by Mr. William Dietz 

 from Hazleton, Pa., who reared it from hawthorn (Cratcegus tomen- 



1 Bibliographic citations in parenthesis refer to " Literature cited," pp. 15 and 16. 

 Note. — Describes an imported insect which is very destructive to several kinds of 

 growing fruit and has attained quite wide distribution throughout the Northeastern and 

 North Central States. 

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