THE PINK CORN-WORM. 33 
of more than one caterpillar. It will be noted that the caterpillar 
does not confine itself, as does the Angoumois moth, to the kernel or 
any part of it, but attacks seed, husk, and cob alike. 
While no positive statement can be made as to the cause of the sud- 
_ den increase of the pink corn-worm, it may, perhaps, be due to the 
fact that cotton is not cultivated on so large a scale or so universally 
as in the past, and possibly it may be due to the destruction of the 
bolls by plowing them under as a remedy against the boll weevil. These 
practices would naturally have the effect of driving the moths to 
deposit their eggs on corn, and this acquired taste of the larve might 
in time be transmitted to their descendants. There can be no doubt 
that when. corn is left too long in the field the ears are more easily 
‘penetrated by the insects. Often, too, if they are permitted to remain 
there over long they become moist, and if stored in this condition 
injury by the pink corn-worm and other insects is greatly hastened. 
Still another practice favors the multiplication of the moth, namely, 
storing corn too long in the husk. The layers of husks just under the 
outer sheath are frequently badly eaten at about the middle, only the 
longitudinal veins being rejected. On one fully developed ear nearly 
every kernel was infested and the ear was so completely enveloped in 
frass and webbing as to be useless for any purpose. [Every ear in 
which this species was found lodged had been first attacked by the 
corn-ear worm (Heliothis obsoleta Fab.). (PL. I.) 
DESCRIPTION. 
THE MOTH. 
Batrachedra rileyt belongs to the same lepidopterous superfamily 1 
as the Angoumois and European grain moths, but to a different 
family.?- From either of the others this species may be easily dis- 
tinguished by its smaller size and by its remarkably slender hind- 
wings and their correspondingly long fringes. The forewings are 
banded and feebly mottled with yellow, reddish-brown, and black. 
The antenne are white, annulated with fuscous, and the legs are 
banded with fuscous. (See fig. 2.) 
The wings measure, when expanded from tip to tip, a little less 
than half an inch (9-11 mm.). 
The moths are very active on their feet and when at rest fold 
their forewings closely together with their tips ‘‘cocked up” after 
the manner of many other tineids and related moths. | 
Following is the original description by Walsingham: 
Head chestnut-brown; palpi widely divergent, whitish, with an oblique pale 
brown mark on each side near the end of the second joint, and two or three brownish 
1 Superfamily Tineina. 
2 Family Elachistidae. 
2 Walsingham, Lord.—Notes on Tineidae of North America. In Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc., v. 10, p. 198- 
199, 1882. 
