638 
JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 17 
partment of Agriculture working on methods for the control of the 
cottony cushion scale. He sent specimens to C. V. Riley (1), Chief of 
the Bureau of Entomology, who described them in the same year as 
Holcocera iceryaeella. Koebele reported the larvae as feeding on living 
black scale and on dead cottony cushion scale. The next account we have 
of this insect is in 1916 in a short paper by E. O. Essig (2) entitled “A 
Coccid Feeding Moth.” Essig records it as occurring on the campus of 
the University of California in Berkeley and finding it most abundantly 
on a sweet bay tree, Laurus nobilis Linn., which was severely infested 
with the greedy scale, Aspidiotus camelliae Sign. He lists as hosts in 
addition to the black scale, Saissetia oleae (Bern) and the cottony 
cushion scale, Icerya purchasi Mask., the following: European peach 
scale, Lecanium persicae (Fab.), the greedy scale, Aspidiotus camelliae 
Sign., and Baker’s mealybug, Pseudococcus bakeri Essig. It is also re¬ 
corded by Horton (3) in 1918 as a mealybug predator. 
The larvae when full grown are 7 to 9 mm. in length. They are 
brownish gray with longitudinal stripes of a lighter color and have a 
brown to shiny black head and prothoracic plate. In habits they are 
moderated irritable and occupy nests made by webbing together bits of 
trash such as old blossoms that have fallen and collected on a leaf. Or 
they may occupy an old curled leaf or an abandoned Tortrix nest. 
Often they locate between oranges where they make a nest and feed on 
the fruits. 
The adult is a small gray moth from 6 to 8 mm. long with a wing ex¬ 
panse of about 15 mm. When at rest the wings are folded straight back 
giving the moth a linear appearance, being only a little wider toward the 
posterior end than at the head. Across each forewing there is an oblique 
line of a lighter color. These lines form a V-shaped mark on the back 
when the wings are folded. 
The forewings are fringed on the tip and outer half of the hind margin. 
The hind wings are fringed clear around but the fringe on the hind 
margin is extra long. 
The pupae are scarcely 5 mm. long and are like small dark brown 
grains of wheat with the abdominal segments quite closely compressed. 
They are found within the larval nests. 
The injury to the fruit is similar to the work of Tortrix citrana but the 
holes and channels into the orange are, as a rule, not quite so deep and 
pronounced. I have repeatedly taken these larvae from nests on 
oranges and found the fruit damaged beneath and on several occasions 
have taken full-grown larvae from their tunnels where they had bored 
