APPLE INSECTS — BUDS AND FOLIAGE 139 



The variegated cutworm (Peridroma margarilosa saucia Hiibner). 



The dark-sided cutworm (Paragrotis messoria Harris). 



The white cutworm (Paragrotis scandens Riley). 



The well-marked cutworm (Noctua clandestina Harris). 



The black-lined cutworm (Noctua fennica Tauscher). 



The mottled-gray cutworm (Rhynchagrotis alternata Grote). 



The red cutworm (Rhynchagrotis placida Grote). 



The speckled cutworm (Mamestra subjuncta Grote and Robinson). 



The dingy cutworm (Schizura ipomcece Doubleday). 



The spotted-legged cutworm (Porosagrotis vetusta Walker). 



A species of Prodenia and Noctua baja Fabricius. 



Cutworms develop from eggs laid by night-flying Noctuid 

 moths that are frequently attracted to lights in large numbers. 

 Light, loose soils are most often infested by these caterpillars, 

 and where there is a scarcity of low-growing vegetation they 

 will climb almost any plant, even to the tops of high trees. 

 As peaches are often grown in such light, sandy soils, both 

 young and old trees have suffered severely from cutworms in 

 various parts of the United States. The buds and leaves 

 of grapevines are also favorite delicacies for them. Young 

 apple, pear and cherry trees, or blackberry, raspberry and 

 currant bushes, or young shade trees and shrubs grown in such 

 soils are also often attacked. The half or two-thirds grown 

 cutworms, hungry after a long winter's fast in the ground, 

 emerge early in the spring as soon as the buds begin to open. 

 Like thieves in the night, they crawl up the trees, vines or bushes 

 and from about 8 p.m. until nearly morning continue their 

 destructive work of eating the buds. In some instances the 

 culprits have been first discovered on still nights by hearing 

 the noise made by the clicking of the hundreds of tiny, hungry 

 jaws as they devoured the buds. Fifty cutworms have been 

 found at one time on a tree set the previous year ; from 500 to 

 800 have been counted going up the trunk of a 12-year old 

 apple tree in a single night ; and 1500 have been taken from 

 such trees during the 2 or 3 weeks they work in spring. Young 



