246 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



grown grasses, whether cut or standing ; or occasionally in 

 between the natural fold of the green leaf, or the unnatural 

 curl at the sides of a withered leaf. On low blue-grass they 

 are almost invariably laid in the fold at the base and junction 

 of the terminal leaf with the stalk. The moth invariably 

 endeavors to secrete them. They are generally laid in single 

 rows of from five to twenty, and upward ; and they are ac- 

 companied with a wliite, glistening, viscid fluid, which glues 

 them to each other and to the plant, and, when laid in the 

 folds of a spear, draws the two sides securely over them, 

 leaving but a glistening streak along the more or less per- 

 fectly closed edges. 



The female, having once commenced to lay, is extremely 

 active and busy, especially during warm nights ; and but a 

 day or so is required to empty the ovaries, which have a uni- 

 form development. A string of fifteen or twenty eggs is 

 placed in two or three minutes ; and, by the end of ten more, 

 I have known the moth to choose another leaf, and supply it 

 with another string. The moth perishes within a day after 

 having exhausted her supply of eggs. The egg is glistening 

 white when first laid, smooth, and about 0.5 mm. in diame- 

 ter, becoming tarnished or dull yellowish toward maturity. 

 Just before the hatching of the larva, which, in a uniform 

 temperature of seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit, takes j^lace 

 from the eighth to the tenth day after oviposition, the brown 

 head of the embryo shows distinctly through the shell. 



The newly-hatched larva is 1.7 mm. long, dull, trans- 

 lucent white in color, with a rather large, brown-black 

 head. The two front pairs of pro-legs, as in many other 

 noctuids, are so atrophied as to necessitate the looping 

 motion in travelling. When disturbed, it instantly drops 

 by means of a web. The development of the larva is quite 

 irregular, but requires, on an average, only three weeks. 

 The number of moults is normally five. After the first 

 moult, the color becomes yellowish green, with the lines which 

 characterize the mature larva faintly outlined in rose-brown. 

 After the second moult, the looping habit is abandoned, and 

 the worm curls round, and does not spin in dropping. In the 

 fourth stage, the aspect is quite changed ; the general color 

 being dull, dark green. In the fifth and sixth stages, the 

 characteristics of the mature larva are more and more as- 



