2 BULLETIN 363, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
of corn in the principal regions infested might be lost. While the 
insect confined its attacks largely to Mississippi, it was also observed 
in injurious numbers in Arkansas, Alabama, Texas, and Louisiana. 
' Singularly, the species was not described until the year 1882, when 
Lord Walsingham gave it the name of Batrachedra rileyr, but it now 
assumes nearly the same importance as the Angoumois grain moth 1 
and is much more troublesome now than the European grain moth.” 
The species sufficiently resembles the latter to have been mistaken 
for it by Glover and others, and its work has been compared to that 
of the former. In reality it bears some resemblance to both species 
in appearance and habits. 
The pink corn-worm was first brought to the writer’s attention 
in ripening ears of corn from Texas in 1894 (Chittenden, 1897).3 
From the fact that the larve first seen were feeding on the husks. 
and the species was not then identified as feeding naturally on the 
kernels of corn, it was for convenience called the corn-husk moth, 
and this name might have been retained had not the insect devel- 
oped later into a destructive grain-feeding species. The names 
pink corn-worm, pink worm, and red corn-worm are now in general 
use in the South. 
NATURE OF INJURY. 
In material received from Baton Rouge, La., and Beeville, Tex., 
in 1895, the little rose-colored larve were noticed by the writer 
chiefly between the husks, which were fresh and succulent, and on 
these they were feeding. A few moths were afterwards reared 
from the husked ear. The Texas sending afforded a fair opportunity 
for the study of the work of the species. One undeveloped ear 
harbored numbers of the larvee which had gnawed into every part 
of it from the outer husk to the dwarfed ear within. 
The injured grains when examined individually have somewhat the 
appearance of being infested by the Indian-meal moth (Plodia inéer- 
punctella Hbn.) but not by the Angoumcis grain moth. The larve 
evidently begin to feed on the grains while the latter are still ‘‘in the 
milk” or very soon afterwards, beginning at their insertion and work- 
ing outward toward the crown. The embryo and surrounding parts 
are hollowed out and the seed envelope is often eaten away about the 
base or ‘‘tip”’ of the seed. An astonishing amount of frass is deVel- 
oped which is neither eaten a second time nor packed tightly within 
the kernel, as is evidently the case with the Angoumois moth larva, 
but the particles, being loosely jomed by webbing, fill the interstices 
between the kernels. (Pl. I.) Usually a single larva inhabits a 
kernel but frequently the interior of a grain is completely devoured, 
so that the only part remaining is the thin outer integument inclosing 
a varying amount of accumulated frass. Doubtless this is the work 
1 Sitotroga cerealella Zell. 2 Tinea granella lL. 3 See Bibliography, p. 19. 
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