75 



The Lessee Apple Leaf Eoller. 



( Teras minuta, Bobinson. ) 



Order Lepidoptera. Family ToRTEiciDyE. 



[A greenish yellow, slightly hairy worm, about half an inch 

 long, affecting the young leaves of the terminal twigs. Pupates in 

 the rolled leaves, and emerges as an orange moth in summer, 

 or a gray one in autumn. 1 



The lesser leaf roller has been seriously injurious in Illinois for 

 more than twenty years, and must, I believe, rank first in the list 

 of - leaf -eating nursery insects. Beginning its attack as soon as the 

 leaves have partially unfolded, and affecting largely the terminal 

 twigs, it is capable of doing great damage by checking that 

 straight upward growth so necessary for a successful nursery tree, 

 ^ and causing the throwing out of side branches, which give to the 

 tree a stunted, scraggy appearance. 



literature and nomenclature. 



The literature relating to this insect is in a peculiarly chaotic 

 condition, owing tl^,^ t^p fact that it has been described by 

 five different enton|ologists under as many different specific 

 names. These vaTOus names have been held good by most 

 writers until within a few years, and the insect has been 

 frequently treated of as one or another of the five species. 

 The reasons for this peculiar multiplicity of names are to be 

 found in the wide distribution of the species, the varying food 

 habits of the larva, and the remarkable dimorphism of the imago. 



The species was first described as Tortrix minuta, by Mr. C. T. 

 Eobinson in February, 1869 (Trans. Am. Ent. Soc. Vol. I., p. 

 276; pi. vi, fig. 49). The specimen from which the description 

 was written had been collected in Texas, by Belfrage. 



The following year the insect was redescribed twice, — once by 

 Dr. LeBaron as Tortrix malivorana (2d Rep. St. Ent. 111., pp. 

 20-23); and again by Dr. Packard as Tortrix vacciniivoraiin 

 (Mass. Agr. Rep., 1870, p. 24). Dr. LeBaron had bred the moth 

 from larvfjB feeding upon apple, and published an extended ac- 



