218 HALF HOUES WITH HN'SECTS. [Packard. 



appeared in such numbers as to attract general attention, 

 but in 1861, the year in which the writer first made their 

 acquaintance, they were a grievous plague. 



A writer in Danvers, Mass., says: "They were seen in 

 great numbers through the entire field of several acres, 

 climbing up the stalks of the barley, eating the blades and 

 cutting off the heads of the grain. The day after these 

 worms were discovered, the barley was mowed in order to 

 preserve it, when they dropped to the ground, throwing 

 themselves into a coil, a habit of the insect when disturbed. 

 Many of them soon commenced a march for the neighboring 

 fields and gardens, while others blindly pushed forward a 

 column across the highways over a stone wall, where they 

 were crushed by travellers on the road. But the main body 

 marched to the adjoining gardens and enclosures, where the 

 proprietors were waiting to receive them in their entrench- 

 ments, which had been thrown up a foot wide and two feet 

 deep. The worms, as they fell in their advance into the 

 trenches, were assailed in various ways by eager combatants, 

 some spreading over them lime, tar or ashes, while others 

 resorted vigorously to pounding them. In this way, count- 

 less numbers of them were destroyed. The rear guard, 

 composed principally of those of smaller growth, kept in the 

 field, where they were picked up by a troop of fifty young 

 red-winged black-birds. I also noticed the robins feeding 

 on these vermin." Again: "In adjoining lots they were 

 commencing their devastation upon the corn, turnips, cab- 

 bages, weeds and grass. They leave the grass ground com- 

 pletely clean and white, so that it has the appearance of 

 having been scorched in the sun. The cabbage and turnips 

 they destroy by eating the tender parts of the plants, while 

 they attack the corn by descending the spindle and conceal- 

 ing themselves in large numbers among the leaves where the 

 corn is to make its appearance. Corn thus attacked looks 

 wilted and drooping. In some hills, the stalks were stripped 



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