APPLE INSECTS OF MAINE. II5 



Life History. 

 The half-grown, brown, hibernating caterpillars usually 

 emerge from winter quarters about the time the buds begin to 

 expand, their first appearance depending on the advance of the 

 season, and ranging over two or three weeks. When they are 

 out early, they gnaw into the buds. If the buds are open they 

 crawl inside. They attack both flower and leaf buds, fastening 

 the parts together with silken threads, forming a nest, within 

 which they feed upon the enclosed tender flower or leaf parts. 

 They do not confine their depredations to a single leaf or flower 

 in the bud, but increase the injury done by sampling nearly all. 

 Tliev sometimes bore down the stems a few inches, killing the 

 terminal shoots. The bud attacked turns brown, making the 

 nest conspicuous. The caterpillars feed mostly at night for six 

 or seven weeks and molt three times. When full grown the 

 caterpillar forms a tube out of leaves, which it lines with thin, 

 closely woven silk, and within it soon changes to the pupa. In 

 about ten da3^s the pupa works its way nearly out of the tube by 

 the hooks on its back. The skin splits open and the moth 

 appears. The moths are on the wing during the latter part of 

 June and the first of July. They fly mostly at night, resting on 

 the trees during the day time, when they are easily detected by 

 the white bands on the wings. They live two or three weeks, 

 during which time they mate and the eggs are laid. The eggs, 

 which resemble small fish scales, are laid singly or in clusters, 

 mostly at night, on the under side of the leaves. The eggs hatch 

 in seven to ten days. The young larvae feed upon the epidermis 

 of the leaf, forming a silken tube for protection. After the 

 fourth molt, which occurs the last of August or the first of 

 September, or before the leaves fall, they leave the silken tubes 

 and form a silken winter home (hibernaciihim) on- the smaller 

 twigs near the buds, in which they spend the winter. The 

 appearance of the hibernating larva in the spring completes the 

 cycle of life. 



Remedies. 



Pull off and crush the withered clusters of leaves containing 

 the caterpillars and chrysalids early in spring. 



Spray with Paris green or with Bordeaux mixture and Paris 

 green, as soon as the buds begin to swell in the spring. 



