110 PEACH. ROOT THE BORER. TIME OF ITS APPEARANCE. 



timely care. It would appear that the excessive drouth of the 

 past summer and autumn had favored the multiplication of the 

 moths which produce these borers, bringing them out in such 

 numbers that the roots of all our peach trees were stocked to 

 repletion, and the insects were obliged to resort to other kinds of 

 trees to dispose of a surplus portion of their eggs,, as we shall 

 presently see. , 



Many intelligent persons, who are acquainted with this insect 

 and the Apple tree borer only in their larva states, cannot fully 

 persuade themselves that the two are really different inseci;s, so 

 much do the worms resemble each other in their external appear- 

 ance and the habit of attacking the trees at the surface of the 

 ground. But any one who places them side by side will readily 

 perceive that they differ from each other in several important 

 particulars. The Peach borer is cylindrical and not broader 

 anteriorly, like the Apple, tree borer; it has three pairs of small 

 feet, whilst the Apple tree borer has none; it has only a few 

 scattered coarsish hairs, whilst the Apple tree borer has numerous 

 fine shorter ones. Such important differences prove that these 

 worms are really distinct. They differ much more widely when 

 they come to attain their perfect state. Whilst the Apple tree 

 borer is transformed, as we have already seen, to a Long-horned 

 beetle, the worm of the peach tree changes to a four- winged fly, 

 bearing some resemblance to a large wasp, and pertains to the 

 Family ^geriid^ of the Order Lepiijoptera. 



This insect was named Mgeria exitiosa or the Destructive ^geria 

 by Mr. Say, and was described by him in a communication giving 

 an account of its habits by Mr. James Worth, which was pub- 

 lished in the Journal of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural 

 Sciences, (vol. iii. p. 216) in the year 1823. Mr. Worth having 

 obtained the winged moths in July supposed this month only was 

 the one in which the perfect insect makes its appearance. But 

 whoever examines infested roots will find worms upon them of 

 all sizes, at all times of the year. Even in the winter small 

 worms occur with others which are full grown, showing that these 

 last will complete their changes much earlier in the season than 



