Climbing Cutworms. 645 



a rule, they are of a somber grey or brown color with their wings 

 obscurely marked. The size and general appearance of several of 

 the species are well represented in the figures on the plates in this 

 bulletin. Their nocturnal habits, and the fact that often when in 

 obscurity their eyes shine very brightly, suggested their common 

 name, owlet- moths. 



Appearance of Cutworms. 



Cutworms are sleek, fat-iooking caterpillars ranging, when full- 

 grown, from an inch to nearly two inches in length. They are dull 

 yellowish, whitish, greenish, or greyish in color, and often striped, 

 clouded, or variously marked with dull black or brown ; sometimes 

 deep black or distinct white markings occur. A few hairs arise 

 from darkish, regularly arranged spots on the body. All cutworms 

 have six true legs and ten fleshy pro-legs, and usually the head and 

 a horny shield on the back of the next segment are dark colored. 

 Several of these characteristic features are well shown in the figures 

 of the different cutworms on the plates. 



Food-Plants. 



Cutworms are not at all fastidious in their diet, but they prefer 

 the succulent crops of the garden, especially corn, cabbages, toma- 

 toes, onions, beans, etc. They also often work great destruction to 

 grass, wheat, barley, turnips, strawberries, tobacco, clover, cotton, 

 and many kinds of flowers. In some instances they have first 

 attacked the weeds in a grain-field, and some kinds have taken a 

 great liking to the open buds on peach trees in western New York 



Destructiveness and Abundance of Cutworms. 



From the earliest times, both in America and Europe, cutworms 

 have ranked among the most destructive of insect pests. This is 

 principally due to their unfortunate habit of cutting off the young 

 plants and thus destroying much more than they consume. They 

 are justly a terror to the agriculturist from the secrecy of their 

 depredations and the extreme difliculty of arresting them. Every 

 year hundreds of acres of corn have to be replanted and thousands 

 of garden plants are cut off in nearly every State. In 1885 and 

 1886, the onion crop of Orange county, IST. Y., estimated at 500,000 

 bushels yearly and worth half a million dollars, was reduced one- 

 half by the attacks of a single species of cutworm. In 1893, cut- 



