Climbing Cutworms. 



I. CUTWOKMS IN GENEEAL. 



♦ 



Althoiigli this bulletin treats primarily of climbing cutworms, 



it seems advisable to devote a few pages to a discussion of cutworms 



in general. 



What ake They? 



Cutworms are the caterpillars of certain moths belonging to a 

 great family of insects known as Noctuids or owlet-moths. Most 

 of the moths or " millers " that fly into our houses at night, 

 attracted by the lights, are members of this family. Several dif- 

 ferent kinds of cutworms are represented, about twice natural 

 size, on the plates in this bulletin. 



Habits of Cutwokms. 



Many different kinds of grubs and caterpillars have a peculiar 

 habit of often cutting off their food-plants near the surface of the 

 soil ; these were all commonly known as " cutworms " to the earlier 

 writers on insects.* About seventy-five years ago, writers began 

 to restrict the name to the caterpillars of owlet-moths only ; 

 and all of these had the peculiar habit of concealing themselves 

 during the day, either beneath some object on the ground or 

 buried just beneath the surface, and of coming forth to feed only 

 at night. More recently, several Noctuid caterpillars with noc- 



* When aud by whom the name "cutworm" was first used, we have been 

 unable to discover. It first appeared iu a dictionary in 1808 as a Scottish word 

 designatiuf^ " a small white grub, which destroys coleworts aud other vegetables 

 of this kind, hj cutting through the stem near the roots" (Jamiesou's Dictionary 

 of the Scottish Language) ; it is doubtful if this definition refers to a Noctuid 

 caterpillar. As the. term was quite commonly used in communications read 

 before the Philadelphia Society for the promotiou of. Agriculture in 1816 and 1817, 

 it is probable that it has been in use in this country for a century or more. The 

 name may still be in use in Scotland, but it seems to have never come into use in 

 England or iu any other country except America. For the past seventy-five 

 years it seems to have appeared ouly in American literature. In England, the 

 term "surface caterpillars " is used, and the Germans call them "erdraupen'' or 

 " eulenraupen." 



