12 



BULLETIN 746, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



FOOD PLANTS. 



Food plants other than sugar cane and corn are broom corn, Kafir 

 corn, milo maize, sorghum {Sorghum halepense) , Sudan grass (An- 

 dropogon sorghum var. sudanensis) , Para grass, vetiver (Andropogon 

 muricatus), and feather grass {LectocMoamucronata). Bodkin (20) 

 records rice as a food plant in British Guiana. 



A large larva will almost fill the interior of a stalk of grass, but 

 nevertheless will develop successfully. 



The number of food plants, some of which grow wild about planta- 

 tions, makes the species more difficult to control than if it were 



limited to corn and sugar cane, the 

 larvse being able to grow to ma- 

 turity on wild grasses and the 

 adults migrating to the corn and 

 cane fields. 



SUMMARY OF LIFE CYCLE. 



Emerging in the spring, the 

 adult females deposit their eggs on 

 the young plants of sugar cane, 

 corn, etc. These eggs hatch, the 

 young larvse feeding here and there 

 on the leaves for a short time and 

 then boring into the stalks. After 

 reaching their full ' development 

 the " borers " pupate and in a few 

 days the moths emerge. Eggs are 

 again deposited, and the life cycle 

 is repeated again and again until 

 winter, during which the larval 

 period is prolonged until spring. 

 The overwintering larvse then pu- 

 pate, moths emerge and mate, and 

 the cycle is repeated. 



DESCRIPTIONS OF STAGES IN LIFE CYCLE. 



THE EGG. 



The eggs are round-oval, flattened, about 1.16 mm. long by about 

 0.75 mm. wide, 1 and are deposited in clusters. Beginning at the top 

 of a cluster they overlap one another (see fig. 2), like scales on a fish. 

 A group or cluster contains from 2 or 3 to 50 or more eggs. The clus- 

 ters vary in shape as well as in size, a small one often being irregularly 

 round, while the larger ones are much longer than wide — sometimes 



1 One millimeter is about one twenty-fifth of an inch. 



