Page:The Olive Its Culture in Theory and Practice.djvu/142

116 (Fig. 1 d.) and all shun the direct action of the sun. At the end of twenty-five or thirty days (about the last of March) the larva commences its transformation into the pupa, weaving on the same leaf (Fig. 1 e), a cocoon which takes about twenty-four hours. In another twenty-four hours the last change takes place, and they acquire the semblance of the pupa (Fig. 9, 9 a, 9 b.) They remain in a lethargic state for twelve or fourteen days, when the moth appears, which is about the first of April. The moths live a month or more, and from the middle to the last of April they flutter about the olive in the evening when the sun is gone. During the day they remain quiet among the leaves and there the female deposits her eggs.

The larvæ of the second generation hatch in the first half of May and assault the floral cluster, penetrating within the blossom and consuming the pistil and gemmules (Fig. 2 a a). One larva can in this way destroy twenty or more blossoms. In the first half of June they change into pupæ and in seven or eight days after into moths. These live a little more than a month and towards the beginning of July the female deposits her eggs one by one, piercing the calix of the berry. It is seldom that two eggs are deposited in one berry.

The eggs which have been deposited in the olive hatch in about ten days, and the larvæ penetrate into the seed of the berry and consume first the skin about the kernel, and eventually the whole almond. (Fig. 5, e, d.) When they have attained their full development they issue from the fruit by boring a hole in the softer part of the seed near the stem, which being thus weakened causes the olive to fall from the tree.

The larva weaves its cocoon at once, on either fruit, stem or leaves. In eight or ten days, that is, from the last of September to the middle of October, the moth of this third generation will appear, from which the generation of the following February will have