78 



NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



Fig. 8 Crambus 

 larged (Original) 



hortuellus, en- 



bined with short, black lines and dots. It is a very common species 

 in grass lands during July and has attracted considerable attention 



because of its injuries to cranberry 

 bogs, where it is known as the cran- 

 berry girdler. 



Description of early stages. 

 The eggs are creamy white when 

 first laid, turning to a pinkish red 

 before hatching. The young larva 

 has a smutty white color with the 

 head a little darker than the rest of the body. The full grown larva, 

 as characterized by Scudder, has a yellowish head and thoracic shield 

 and the dark body is sparsely clothed with bristles, the longer ones 

 being nearly as long as the width of the body. 



Life history. This is a very prolific species, one female deposit- 

 ing 700 eggs. They hatch in about 10 days and the young larvae 

 are very strong and active. They soon construct vertical cylindric 

 nests at the base of grass stalks, covering the outside with bits of 

 dry grass and lining them with silk. The larvae become dormant 

 as cold weather approaches and in November the nests are rein- 

 forced with additional silk and the tops closed, affording a secure 

 retreat for the winter. Professor Scudder's observations on this 

 species as a cranberry insect show that the larvae occur in silken 

 galleries beside the prostrate stems or runners upon which they 

 feed. The injury was more marked on the edges of the field,, pre- 

 sumably near grass. He found that the cocoons were spun at the 

 surface of the soil and strengthened with particles of sand. They 

 remained therein till the latter part of May or early in June appa- 

 rently without any feeding, transformed to pupae, and a month 

 later the moths emerged. 



Remedies. This species, according to Mr Scudder,^ can be 

 checked on cranberry bogs by flooding them for five days directly 

 after picking the crop. This destroys the larvae, and where the 

 injury to cranberries is serious this measure might be supplemented 

 by keeping adjacent fields cultivated or in some crop other than 

 grass, upon which this species and its allies thrive. 



Experiments in controlling San Jose scale 



Aspidiotus perniciosus Comst. 

 The following experiments against this insect during the season 

 of 1905 were confined largely to testing several lime-sulfur washes 



