NOCTU.ELIT.E. 307 



•'Its general color above is dull, dark, leaden brown, with a 

 faint trace of a dirty yellow white line along the back. The 

 subdorsal line is more distinct, and between it and the stigmata 

 are two other indistinct pale lines. There are eight black, 

 shiny, piliferous spots on each segment ; two near the subdorsal 

 line, the smaller a little above anteriorly' ; the larger just below 

 it, and a little back of the middle of the segment, with the line 

 appearing especiall^^ light above it. The other two are placed 

 each side of the stigmata, the one anteriorly' a little above, 

 the other just behind, in the same line with them, and having a 

 white shade above it." 



Wliile cut-worms have usually been supposed to feed upon 

 the roots of grasses and to cut off the leaves of succulent 

 vegetables, Mr. Cochran, of Calumet, 111., has discovered that 

 one species ascends the apple, pear and grape, eating off the 

 fruit buds, thus doing immense damage to the orchard. Mr. 

 Cochran, in a letter published in the "Prairie Farmer," states 

 that "they destroy low branched fruit trees of all kinds except 

 the peach, feeding on the fruit buds first, the wood buds as a 

 second choice, and preferring them to all things, tender grape 

 buds and shoots (to which they are also partial) not excepted ; 

 the miller always preferring to lay her eggs near the hill or 

 mound over the roots of the trees in the orchard, and if, as is 

 many times the case, the trees have a spring dressing of lime 

 or ashes with the view of preventing the operations of the May 

 beetles, this will be selected with unerring instinct by the mil- 

 ler, thus giving her larva? a fine warm l)ed to cover themselves 

 with during the day from the observation of their enemies. 

 They will leave potatoes, peas and all other young, gi-een 

 things, for the buds of the apple and the pear. The long, 

 naked, young trees of the orchard are almost exempt from 

 their voracious attacks, but I found them about midnight, of a 

 dark and damp night, well up in the limbs of these. The 

 habit of the dwarf apple and pear tree, however, just suits 

 their nature, and much of the complaint of those people who 

 cannot make these trees thrive on a sandy soil, has its source 

 and foundation here, though apparently, utterly unknown to 

 the orchardist. There is no known remedy ; salt has no prop- 

 erties repulsive to them ; they burrow in it equally as quick as 



