242 Bulletin 133. 



crops. Cranberry crops have been greatly damaged by them, 

 and in one instance ' ' an army of the worms, in passing through 

 a strawberrj'^ patch, devoured both the leaves of the plant and the 

 unripe fruit." Experiments have shown that in confinement the 

 worms will live, thrive, and undergo their transformations when 

 fed exclusively upon either the garden poppy, beet, lettuce,, 

 cabbage, raspberry, onion, parsnip, radish, carrots, or pea. They 

 refused to feed, however, on bean, cotton, grape, and hemlock. 



Ordinarily clover is not eaten by the worms ; it is said that ' ' a 

 timothy field is often eaten to the ground, leaving the clover scat- 

 tered through it standing." In 1880, however, a remarkable 

 exception occurred in New Jersey where in some localities clover- 

 eating by the worms was the rule and not the exception. 



Fruit growers have little to fear from this pest. In one case, 

 as mentioned above, a strawberry bed was injured by an army of 

 the worms, and there is but one record of their having eaten the 

 leaves of fruit trees. 



Finally, it may be of interest to know, that when on the march, 

 the worms have been known to not hesitate at cannibalism to 

 satisfy their hunger, and many individuals have been killed and 

 devoured by their stronger comrades. 



It is a striking fact, that, although the army- worm is widely 

 spread throughout the world, it is notably destructive only in the 

 northern half of the United States ; and in this section, its capacity 

 for injury is very great. Almost every year it appears somewhere 

 in this area and injures crops to the amount of hundreds of 

 thousands of dollars. As one can readily understand, it is a 

 difficult matter to estimate the loss occasioned by the ravages of 

 an insect over a large area. The damage done by the army- worm 

 in western Massachusetts in 1861 has been estimated at $500,000. 

 The oat crop of Indiana and Illinois is estimated to have been 

 damaged by the insect in 1881 to the extent Of about $750,000. 

 We have but little data upon which to base an estimate of the 

 injury done by the worms in New York in 1896. It has been 

 stated, however, that the damage from the insect in Massachusetts 

 last year would amount to upward of $250,000 ; and we believe 

 that at least as many dollars worth of the crops of timothy, oats 



