THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 103 



The larva or caterpillar of this insect, when fully grown, is larger than 

 it is shown in the figure, being as thick as a. man's little finger, and over 

 three inches in length. It feeds on the leaves of both the Tomato and 

 Potato plants. It varies so much in color that people often suppose that 

 a number of different species of " worms " are attacking their plants. It 

 is frequently of a bright green marked with white, and having along each 

 side a series of seven oblique greenish-yellow stripes ; again it may be 

 found with its general color dark green, dark brown, blackish green, and 

 other shades, even to deep black. ( )n the last segment of the body there 

 is a curved horn or tail. The accompanying wood-cut affords so satis- 

 factory a representation of the three stages of the insect that it is unneces- 

 sary to enter into a minute detailed description. 



The larva is found feeding during July and August. It often so 

 closely resembles the foliage on which it reposes, the bands on its sides, 

 mimicking the ribs of the leaves, that it cannot always be detected ; its 

 presence, however, may usually be traced by the singularly marked cylin- 

 drical pellets of excrement on the ground and the stripped leaf-stalks of 

 the plant. When fully grown the larva descends into the earth, and there 

 makes a chamber for itself in which to change to its pupa state. For- 

 tunately the insect is not a very common one, its numbers being kept in 

 check by a small Ichneumon-fly ; otherwise from its size and voracity it 

 would prove most destructive. Very rarely are more than a few specimens 

 seen in a tomato or potato patch. In the summer of 1878, however, as I 

 recorded in the Canadian Entomologist (vol. x., p. 218), it was so 

 abundant that a market-gardener who lives near me gathered four bushels 

 of the caterpillars off an acre and a quarter of tomatoes in one day ! 

 That year some of the insects attained to the moth or imago state in 

 October, but generally the pupa remains quiescent in the ground till the 

 following season and the moth appears in June or July. " I have now in 

 my possession a living chrysalis of this insect that belonged to the abund- 

 ant brood of 1878. It was given to me by Mr. David Smart, of Port 

 Hope, who found it, with a large number of others, in his garden. He 

 kept the chrysalids in a box of earth in his cellar all last year ; no doubt 

 the coolness prevented the development of the imago. He and I are now 

 both watching with much interest for the appearance of the moths from 

 our specimens, as two years in the pupa state is by no means a common 

 occurrence. That the pupae are still alive is shown by the readiness with 

 which they move the segments of the abdomen when handled or 



