LEPIDOPTERA. 321 



panding one inch and three eighths, with three or four white dots 

 around the kidney-spot, and the ordinary round spot wholly 

 white. 



Numerous complaints have been made of the ravages of cut- 

 worms among corn, wheat, grass, and other vegetables, in various 

 parts of the country. After a tiresome search through many of 

 our agricultural publications, I have become convinced that these 

 insects and their history are not yet known to some of the very 

 persons who are said to have suffered from their depredations. 

 Various cut-worms, or more properly subterranean caterpillars, 

 wire-worms or luli, and grub-worms, or the young of May- 

 beetles, are often confounded together or mistaken for each other ; 

 sometimes their names are interchanged, and sometimes the same 

 name is given to each and all of these different animals. Hence 

 the remedies that are successful in some instances are entirely 

 useless in others. The name of cut-worm seems originally to 

 have been given to certain caterpillars that live in the ground 

 about the roots of plants, but come up in the night, and cut off 

 and devour the tender stems and lower leaves of young cabbages, 

 beans, corn, and other herbaceous plants. These subterranean 

 caterpillars are finally transformed to moths belonging to a group 

 which may be called Agrotidians (AgrotidiDjE), from a word 

 signifying rustic, or pertaining to the fields. Some of these rustic 

 moths fly by day, and may be found in the fields, especially in the 

 autumn, sucking the honey of flowers ; others are on the wing 

 only at night, and during the day lie concealed in chinks of walls 

 and other dark places. Their wings are nearly horizontal when 

 closed, the upper pair completely covering the lower wings, and 

 often overlapping a little on their inner edges, thus favoring these 

 insects in their attempts to obtain shelter and concealment. The 

 thorax is slightly convex, but smooth or not crested. The an- 

 tennae of the males are generally beset with two rows of short 

 points, like fine teeth, on the under-side, nearly to the tips. The 

 fore-legs are often quite spiny. Most of these moths come forth 

 in July and August, and soon afterwards lay their eggs in the 

 ground, in ploughed fields, gardens, and meadows. In Europe it 

 is found that the eggs are hatched early in the autumn, at which 

 time the little subterranean caterpillars live chiefly on the roots 

 41 



