212 THE LESSER APPLE LEAF-FOLDER. 
in most of its habits, the larger Tortrix (Lozotenia rosaceana) of 
the apple and the rose. 
If this insect should spread so as to infest other nurseries, as 
. it has that of Mr. Wier, and others in that section of country, it 
would prove itself a pest of the most serious character ; and, as 
far as we can judge from present appearances, it will be a difficult 
matter to reach them with destructive agencies, both on account 
of the closure of the leaf in which they dwell, and their webby 
covering. Fortunately, as is the case with most other double- 
brooded insects, the first brood is comparatively limited in num- 
bers; and Mr. Wier thinks that it would have paid him well to 
have gone through his nursery, early in the season, and picked off 
the folded leaves. 
The importance of combating evils in their incipient stages 
can find no more apt illustrations than in the department of eco- 
nomic entomology. Many noxious insects can be substantially 
eradicated in their infancy, which, if permitted to attain a larger 
growth and a wider range, are wholly beyond our control. This is 
emphatically the case with the present species. It is evident that 
whatever applications we may make use of here, must be made be- 
fore the young insects have time to close the leaf above them, in the 
case of the first brood, and before they have covered themselves 
with a web, in the second. These periods will probably be found 
to be about the first week of May and the first week of August. 
But the time will vary somewhat with the character of the season, 
and must be determined by actual inspection. These little worms 
are so tender, and so unprotected by any hairy covering, that I 
should expect them to be easily destroyed by any of the ordinary 
applications, such as lime, ashes or soapsuds, provided we can find 
when the substance applied will really reach them. Mr. 
Wier informed me that he discovered a bug with many bright 
stripes, preying upon these caterpillars, which, from his descrip- 
tion, I suppose to be the Harpactor cinctus, a well-known preda- 
ceous insect of the Hemipterous order. But this tribe of predaceous 
insects is not usually sufficiently numerous to check the increase 
of such a locally abundant species as the Tortrix malivorana. 
