364 INSECTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 



they are hatched, they begin to gnaw the grain and cover them- 

 selves with the fragments, which they line with a silken web. As 

 they increase in size they fasten together several grains with their 

 webs, so as to make a larger cavity, wherein they live. After a 

 while, becoming uneasy in their confined habitations, they come 

 out, and wander over the grain, spinning their threads as they go, 

 till they have found a suitable place wherein to make their co- 

 coons. Thus, wheat, rye, barley, and oats, all of which they 

 attack, will be found full of lumps of grains cemented together by 

 these corn-worms, as they are sometimes called ; and when they 

 are very numerous, the whole surface of the grain in the bin will 

 be covered with a thick crust of webs and of adhering grains. 

 These destructive corn-worms are really soft and naked caterpil- 

 lars, of a cylindrical shape, tapering a little at each end, and are 

 provided with sixteen legs, the first three pairs of which are coni- 

 cal and jointed, and the others fleshy and wart-like. When fully 

 grown, they measure four or five tenths of an inch in length, and are 

 of a light ochre or buff color, with a reddish head. When about 

 six weeks old they leave the grain, and get into cracks, or around 

 the sides of corn-bins, and each one then makes itself a little oval 

 pod or cocoon, about as large as a grain of wheat. The insects 

 of the first brood, as before said, come out of their cocoons, in 

 the winged form, in July and August, and lay their eggs for 

 another brood : the others remain unchanged in their cocoons, 

 through the winter, and take the chrysalis form in March or April 

 following. Three weeks afterwards, the shining brown chrysalis 

 forces itself part w T ay out of the cocoon, by the help of some little 

 sharp points on its tail, and bursts open at the other end, so as to 

 allow the moth therein confined to come forth. 



The foregoing account will probably enable the readers of this 

 essay to determine whether these destructive insects are found in 

 our own country. From various statements, deficient however 

 in exactness, that have appeared in some of our agricultural jour- 

 nals, I am led to think that this corn-moth, or an insect exactly 

 like it in its habits, prevails in all parts of the country, and that it 

 has generally been mistaken for the grain-weevil, which it far sur- 

 passes in its devastations. Many years ago I remember to have 

 seen oats and shelled corn (maize) affected in the way above de- 



