30 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



bers may be laid on leaves of barren limbs. There was nothing 

 in the records to show that proximity of eggs had any material 

 influence upon the fruit becoming infested. Similarly, Pettit 

 ['04] found some 86^ of the eggs on the foliage. Females may 

 deposit from 29 to 136 eggs, the aA'-erage running probably from 

 60 to 75. According to Sanderson ['09] the laying of eggs may 

 be considerably delayed by cool weather. Hurst ['09] holds 

 that the eggs may be killed if the temperature drops to 36° F. 

 Thus a cool period in late May or early June may result in com- 

 paratively few wormy apples. The duration of the egg stage 

 depends somewhat upon temperature conditions and in New 

 Hampshire [Sanderson '08] it was found to be a trifle over 

 eight days. Simpson ['03] gives the average as 11 days. 



The appearance of the majority of the moths two to three 

 weeks after the dropping of the petals and, adding to this the 

 time necessary for the hatching of the eggs, shows that the 

 major . portion of the young apple worms can not attack the 

 fruit till three to four weeks after the falling of the bloom. 



Habits of the larva. The young larva, which is only about 

 1/16 of an inch long, whitish, black spotted and with a black 

 head, feeds [Sanderson '08] first upon the foliage, mining into 

 the leaf at the angles of the midrib and branch veins and gnaw- 

 ing the softer portions of the surface. It is possible that some 

 may attain maturity without entering fruit, since Dr Headlee 

 succeeded in obtaining a pupa from one which grew to full size 

 in a water sprout. Usually the appetite for fruit asserts itself 

 early and the young larva starts in search of an apple. The 

 blossom end is highly favored, since some two thirds or more of the 

 total enter at this point, feeding first in the calyx cavity and 

 then making a more or less direct path to the core. The young 

 larvae exhibit a marked preference for the seeds and the tissues 

 in the immediate vicinity. Rarely do we find more than two 

 worms coming to maturity in the same apple, even on very 

 badly infested trees. The time spent in the apple is variable, 

 several investigators giving, records from 10-14, 16-24, 20-30, 

 25-30 and 34 days. The average is probably not far from four 

 weeks, though the duration of this stage is dependent to some extent 

 upon the temperature. The full-grown apple worm is about ji 

 of an inch long, with a conspicuous, brown head and a whitish 

 or frequently pinkish body. It forsakes the apple upon attain- 

 ing maturity and seeks some secure place prior to excavating a 



