INSECTS. 43 



In a few days these eggs are hatched, and each little worm 

 begins to eat its way down to the core, which is readily reached 

 from this point. Arrived at the core, it gradually excavates for 

 itself a chamber, feeding upon the pulp of the apple, and in- 

 creasing in size until it has reached maturity. This is done in 

 about four weeks, when it is scarce half an inch long, of a delicate 

 pink colour, and thinly covered with very delicate white hairs. 

 Fig. 30, c, represents the worm of full size. When its growth is 

 completed, ft eats its way through the side of the apple and 

 crawls out. If the apple has not dropped from the tree, it can 

 let itself down very gently by a silken thread which it spins, and 

 seek a secure retreat. The worm does not crawl into the ground, 

 as many have supposed, but seeks a hiding place in any crevice, 

 under the rough bark, between dried blades of grass, in the folds 

 of an old rag, in short, anywhere that a safe retreat can be found. 

 Hidden away in this hiding place, it spins around ^itself a thin, 

 silken cocoon, like very fine tissue paper, and, inside of this 

 cocoon, throws off its skin and becomes a pupa. The cocoon is 

 shown at Fig. 30, d, and c represents a portion of an apple cut 

 open so as to show the chamber made by the worm around the 

 core, and the channel reaching to the side, by which the worm 

 makes his way out. In due time the pupa, or chrysalis, as it is 

 also called, works its way out of one end of the cocoon, and the 

 moth, now fully formed within the chrysalis, breaks the shell of 

 the pupa, and comes out. 



There are two broods of these little codling-worms in each 

 summer. Some, at least, and probably only a part of them, come 

 ont in the moth state in August, and proceed to deposit their 

 eggs on the sound apples,, apparently selecting the winter fruit. 

 Hence we sometimes meet with these worms in the fruit that has 

 been stored for winter use. 



The effect upon the fruit is, as a rule, to cause it to ripen pre- 

 maturely and fall to the ground. No doubt, sometimes, the 

 worm has escaped from the fruit before it falls, but usually the 

 worm may yet be found within the freshly-fallen fixiit. However, 



