AN ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY. 



Fig. 366. 



some in other plants. As with all other borers, there is difficulty 

 in reaching them directly, and besides destroying infested plants, 

 nothing really satisfactory has been proposed. Diatma saccha- 

 ralis bores into sugar-cane and into corn, often doing much in- 

 jury to the latter crop in the States south of the Potomac. 

 There are two or more broods, depending on latitude, the last 

 remaining through the winter in the larval stage in the corn- 

 stalks. We have thus an obvious remedy in removing and 

 destroying or using these up completely before the spring follow- 

 ing. In sugar-cane the matter is not so simple ; but by burning 

 tops, cutting close to the surface, and planting in fall from sound 

 canes only, the injury can be at least much reduced if not en- 

 tirely avoided. It is another in- 

 stance where an intelligent farm 

 practice will answer every pur- 

 pose, without a resort to insecti- 

 cides of any kind. Mats, both 

 flat and round, are especially to be 

 avoided for affected canes. 



An interesting little family is 

 the PterophoridcB, peculiar in 

 having the wings split into feath- 

 ers or plumes. Occasionally the 

 primaries have only a cleft that 

 does not extend beyond the mid- 

 dle, but sometimes they are split 

 for the full length. The hind 

 wings may be divided into from 

 four to six feathers, the insects 

 being therefore termed ' ' plume 

 moths, " or ' * feather-wing moths. ' ' 

 As a whole, few of the species are 

 common, and I am acquainted 

 with only one that is in any way 

 injurious, — the "grape plume," 

 The caterpillar of this is pale yel- 

 lowish or nearly white, with little tubercles, from which rise tufts 

 of pale hair similar to those of some Arctiids, or " woolly bears." 

 It lives in the tips of young shoots of grape, webbing up the 



The grape plume, Oxyptilus peris- 

 celidactylus. — a, larvae in a spun -up 

 tip ; b, pupa ; c, its breast projection ; 

 d, moth ; e, a single segment of larva. 



Oxyptilus periscelidadylus. 



