192 



DESTRUCTIVE INSECT:^. 



oval, brown eggs on the bark of the trunks of the trees from 

 six to eighteen inches from the ground. From the egg there 

 hatches in a week or ten days a minute larva — the young 

 borer — which at once works its way into a crevice of the bark, 

 and soon begins feeding on the inner layers of the bark. It 

 continues to feed in this manner, gradually enlarging its bur- 

 row under the bark, until winter sets in, when it stops feeding 

 and hibernates during the winter, either in its burrow or in a 

 thin hibernaculum made over itself on the bark near the 

 surface of the soil. The winter is always spent as a larva or 

 borer, a few of them being nearly full-grown, but most of 



Fig. 258.— The Peach-Tree Borer, a, Female moth ; *, male ; c, full-grown 

 larva ; d, female pupa ; e, male pupa ; /, cocoon with pupa skin partially ex- 

 tended ; all natural size. (U. S. Div. of Entomology.) 



them being considerably less than one-half grown. In the 

 spring, usually about May ist in New York, they break their 

 winter's fast and grow rapidly for a month or more, most of 

 them getting their full growth in June. They then leave their 

 burrows and spin about themselves a brown cocoon (Fig. 258/) 

 at the base of the tree, usually at the surface of the soil. A 

 few days after its cocoon is made the borer changes to a pupa 

 (Fig. 258 d, e), in which stage it remains for about three weeks, 

 usually in June in New York. From the pupa the moth 

 emerges, thus completing its life-cycle in a year, fully ten 

 months of which are usually spent as a borer in the tree, the 

 remainder or a little more than a month being spent in the 

 'Cgg, pupa, and adult stages. About the middle of July all 

 stages of the insect may be found in some orchards. The 

 above brief sketch of the life of the peach-tree borer will apply 



