180 EXPERIMENTAL FARMS 



5-6 EDWXRD VII., A. 1906 



June 19. During last summer, while collecting moths at Ottawa, we found that this 

 species was well represented among captures which we made during the month of June 

 around electric lights; and several more specimens were collected hiding away in dark 

 corners of offices and out-buildings. A few weeks later than this, caterpillars were 

 found in great abundance out of doors on various kinds of plants. These we were able 

 to identify by comparing them with specimens which we had reared from eggs laid by 

 cai^tured females. We were fortunate enough to work out the whole life history of the 

 species. There is only one brood in the year, the eggs being laid in June and July 

 and the caterpillars feeding through July and into August. When full grown they 

 bury a few inches beneath the surface of the ground and change to shining brown 

 chrysalids, from which the moths do not emerge until the following June. The moth 

 is a handsome insect, expanding over an inch and a half when the wings are open. The 

 upper wings are a dark silvery gray, so thickly checkered and marked with waved 

 blackish lines as almost to hide the ground colour ; hind wings silvery gray clouded with 

 fuscous on the outer half. Near the end of the upper wings is a waved white line. The 

 outer or kidney-shaped of the two marks which are characteristic of noctuid moths, 

 is margined with black and is boldly marked with white; but the other, the orbicular, 

 is hardly perceptible from the other marks of the wings. On each of the upper wings 

 are three rather large suffused pale, bronzy areas, one close to the base, and the other 

 two towards the upper and lower angles. The upper of these lies beyond the kidney- 

 shaped mark and just inside the waved white line which runs down inside the outer 

 margin. The thorax and abdomen are crested and of the same colour as the general 

 tone of the wings. The genus Barathra to which this moth belongs, is easily dis- 

 tinguished from its near relatives by the presence of a long curved claw on the outer 

 side of the tibia? of the front pair of legs. 



Not only did this insect occur in abundance at Ottawa, but specimens were sent 

 from Mahone Bay, N.S., where my energetic correspondent. Dr. C. A. Hamilton, makes 

 many very valuable observations for me. Dr. Hamilton found the caterpillars when 

 they were quite small, upon cabbages, turnips, cauliflowers, corn and sweet pease. 

 They were, at the time he first wrote, July 23, quite small, and were of the green colour 

 which characterizes the first stages. Like the larvae of many other noctuids, while 

 very young, they resemble in shape and manner of moving those of the geometer moths. 

 Dr. Hamilton writes: — 'Aug. 11. — I am sending you some more of the caterpillars 

 which I find on my cabbages and cauliflowers. I have also found them on sweet peas 

 and on one small patch of Kohlrabi. I also send a few from corn. I have examined 

 nearly all the patches of these vegetables about this village and from one to six miles 

 oiit in various directions, and have found them present in all but a few cases. The 

 damage, on the whole, is not very great, the worst perhaps being in a small patch of 

 cabbage in which I counted 14 out of 70 plants, so badly eaten as to be worthless. A 

 few other patches were nearly as badly injured, but most had only from one to five 

 per cent noticeably affected. Turnips were infested to about the same extent. Cauli- 

 flowers are not much grown here, but I saw many plants almost ruined. The attacks 

 were confined almost entirely to the cultivated Cruciferas. Fresh batches of young were 

 being hatched from the egg until up to about August 1.' 



Moths of this species were taken at Levis, Que., by the Eev. Dr. Fyles, and I 

 found the caterpillars in great numbers stripping a patch of cabbages in the garden of 

 Mr. 'W. McKirdy, at Nepigon, Ont., on August 21. These were very much later than 

 at Ottawa, where most of the larvse had attained full growth two or three weeks sooner. 



As a remedy for this insect, almost any of the ordinary applications for leaf-eat- 

 ing insects would answer; but I found them less susceptible than I supposed would be 

 the case, to an application of pyrethrum insect powder. There is, of course, the pos- 

 sibility that the powder may not have been good; but it did not kill the caterpillars as 

 quickly as is the case of most other similar caterpillars upon which I have tried it. 

 The poisoned bran mash answered well at Ottawa. 



