2<)6 tRt CA]*IADIAN fiNTOMOLOGISt. 



severe frost, and there remain in a torpid condition all the winter. The 

 warmth of spring arouses them to activity, when they seek the surface of 

 the ground, feeding at night on almost any green thing they meet with, 

 eating with almost insatiable appetites as they approach maturity, and 

 burying themselves during the day under the surface of the ground in the 

 neighborhood of their depredations. When full grown they burrow in the 

 earth to varying depths, and there change to chrysalids from which the 

 mature insects escape in two or three weeks. 



These insects are hurtful only while in the larval condition. As 

 remedies, showering the plants with Paris green and water, sprinkling them 

 with air-slacked lime or powdered hellebore, or strewing lime or soot, or 

 mixtures of these substances around the plants on the surface of the 

 ground, have all been recommended, and in some cases have been found 

 useful. Plants have also been protected from injury by these caterpillars 

 by strewing around them a little dry sand impregnated with coal oil, in the 

 proportion of a teacupful of coal oil to a pailful of sand, thoroughly 

 mixed ; the application should be renewed every week. This method of 

 warding off the attacks of injurious insects by the use of odorous sub- 

 stances repugnant to them, is rapidly growing in favor on account of the 

 success attending its use. This coal oil remedy for cut-worms is said to 

 be very effectual, and the cost of the application being so trifling, its 

 usefulness should be extensively tested. It is manifest that none of these 

 measures are feasible where field crops are invaded, as the area would be 

 too great for any one to undertake to cover with such material. In such 

 cases nature has provided efficient remedies to reduce the numbers of 

 such injurious species. Besides the disease to which I have referred, there 

 are armies of parasitic insects which prey on them. Some of these directly 

 devour their living prey, others deposit eggs within the bodies of their 

 victims, which hatching into grubs, consume them. Hence it often occurs 

 that an insect which is very abundant one season is scarce the next. 



These cut-worms are very widely disseminated. Early in July I 

 received specimens from Manitoba from the Deputy Minister of Agricul- 

 ture, of a caterpillar belonging to this group, which was found to be 

 seriously injuring vegetables, and in some localities oats and barley also. 

 This was a grayish-brown caterpillar with a semi-transparent skin, a brown 

 horny head and a shield of the same character on the upper part of the ' 

 second segment. There was a pale line down the back, two similar lines 

 along each side, and a white band lower down, close to the under surface. 



