THE PINK COEJSI-WORM. 3 



of more than one caterpillar. It will be noted that the caterpillar 

 does not confine itself, as does the Angoumois moth, to the kernel or 

 any part of it, but attacks seed, husk, and cob alike. 



While no positive statement can be made as to the cause of the sud- 

 den increase of the pink corn-worm, it may, perhaps, be due to the 

 fact that cotton is not cultivated on so large a scale or so universally 

 as in the past, and possibly it may be due to the destruction of the 

 bolls by plowing them under as a remedy against the boll weevil. These 

 practices would naturally have the effect of driving the moths to 

 deposit their eggs on corn, and this acquired taste of the larvae might 

 in time be transmitted to their descendants. There can be no doubt 

 that when corn is left too long in the field the ears are more easily 

 penetrated by the insects. Often, too, if they are permitted to remain 

 there over long they become moist, and if stored in this condition 

 injury by the pink corn-worm and other insects is greatly hastened. 

 Still another practice favors the multiphcation of the moth, namely, 

 storing corn too long in the husk. The layers of husks just under the 

 outer sheath are frequently badly eaten at about the middlej only the 

 longitudinal veins being rejected. On one fully developed ear nearly 

 every kernel was infested and the ear was so completely enveloped in 

 frass and webbing as to be useless for any purpose. Every ear in 

 which this species was found lodged had been first attacked by the 

 corn-ear worm {Heliotliis ohsoleta Fab.). (PL I.) 



DESCRIPTION. 



THE MOTH. 



BatracJiedra rileyi belongs to the same lepidopterous superf amily ^ 

 as the Angoumois and European grain moths, but to a different 

 family.^ From either of the others this species may be easily dis- 

 tinguished by its smaller size and by its remarkably slender hind- 

 wings and their correspondingly long fringes. The forewings are 

 banded and feebly mottled with yellow, reddish-brown, and black. 

 The antennae are white, annulated with fuscous, and the legs are 

 banded with fuscous. (See fig. 2.) 



The wings measure, when expanded from tip to tip, a little less 

 than half an inch (9-11 mm.). 



The moths are very active on their feet and when at rest fold 

 their forewings closely together with their tips "cocked up^'. after 

 the manner of many other tineids and related moths. 



Following is the original description by Walsingham:^ 



Head chestnut-brown; palpi widely divergent, whitish, with an obUque pale 

 brown mark on each side near the end of the second joint, and two or three brownish 



1 Superfamily Tineina. 



2 Family Elachistidae. 



2 Walsingham, Lord.— Notes on Tineidae of North America. In Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc, v. 10, p. 198- 

 199, 1882. 



