Entomological Notes. 283 



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comes quite warm in the spring, and vegetation starts freely, these 

 eggs hatch out. Where they are laid in the spring, if the weather 

 is favorable, the worms make their appearance in eight or ten days 

 after the eggs are deposited. 



The young larva? are exceedingly voracious, and eagerly enter 

 upon their mission of destruction. Their development is very 

 rapid. In from two to three waeks they grow from less than a line, 

 to an inch in length. At first the color of the body is a light green, 

 with a dark, almost black head. They pass through five moulting 

 stages, at intervals of about three days each, and with each succes- 

 sive change the color becomes darker. When mature the color is 

 very dark; there is a broad dusky stripe along the back, with alter- 

 nate narrow, faint white, yellow and black lines on the sides. Un- 

 derneath, the color is a bright green. 



When mature the worms are about an inch and a-half in length, 

 and the body is divided into thirteen rings, which become more 

 contracted and wrinkled at each end, and are sparsely covered with 

 short hairs. It has three pair of 

 fore legs, and five pair of pro 

 legs, which are tipped with black. 



When they have exhausted the 

 food of the locality in which they 

 originated, they march in serried 

 ranks, in long deep columns, Fig. 9. Mature Army Worm. 

 wherever their instinct leads them. It is this form of march which 

 gave rise to their name. Nothing will avail to change their course, 

 and nothing short of annihilation will stay their onward march. 

 Wherever they go vegetation melts like the dew. Usually they 

 feed in the fore part of the day, and in the evening, but sometimes 

 keep up the work of destruction through the entire night. In 

 many cases they have in a single night stripped off every green leaf, 

 and eat up every head in large fields of grain. During the last 

 three or four days of their existence, they are much more destruc- 

 tive, and devour more in that time, it is said, than in all the rest of 

 their career. 



On reaching maturity they vanish more suddenly, if possible, 

 than they came; not one can be found where a short time before 

 there were myriads on every side. To those not acquainted with 

 their habits, their sudden appearance in an almost mature state, 



