Packard.] 



DiSECTS OF THE FIELD. 



221 



double lens. As they were attacked, the army worms kept 

 dropping to the ground and gathering in clusters, or hiding 

 under clods, until finally the wheat on which they occurred 

 was entirely free from them." 



The Army worm of the south, or cotton worm, is quite a 

 different sort of caterpillar from its northern namesake. It 

 loops in its gait, and may thus be distinguished from the 

 boll worm, also found upon the cotton. Its body (Fig. 171, 

 moth and larva, natural size ; egg, much enlarged) is rather 

 thick in the middle, tapering towaixls both ends ; and it is 

 green, covered with short hairs, and dotted with black along 

 a yellowish line situated on each side of the back, and with 

 black dots beneath. The moth fig. ni. 



is reddish brown, the wings quite 

 free from the markings usual in 

 the group to which it belongs ; 

 the fore wings are triangular, 

 with two indistinct, dark, zig- 

 zag lines, with a conspicuous 

 dark spot near the centre of 

 the wing, in the middle of which 

 are two white dots. 



She lays from four to six hundred low, flattened, greenish 

 eggs, ornamented with vertical ribs, placing them upon the 

 under side of the leaf. In from two to ten days the young 

 worms hatch, and begin to feed on the pulpy portion of the 

 leaf, but as they grow larger they devour the entire leaf as 

 well as the buds and blossoms. During their life as cater- 

 pillars, which only lasts from fifteen to twenty days, they 

 cast tlieir skins five times. As regards the habits of the 

 cotton worm I cannot do better than to quote from Mr. 

 Riley's second Report on the Noxious Insects of Missouri, 

 in which he says that "there are three different broods of 

 worms during the year, the first appearing in June or July, 

 and the, last, which does the most damage, appearing -in 



29 



Cotton Worm, egg and moth. 



