NOCTUIDM 229 



are due to irregularities and not to the appearance of more 

 than one brood. The insect is rather hard to treat economi- 

 cally because of its ordinary grass-feeding habit. When 

 the enormous increase in numbers occurs, the time for check- 

 ing them is really past. Something can be done for treat- 

 ment. One way is to use trenching methods for capturing 

 the larva?" as they travel over grass land — trenches put 

 across their line of travel and in this way large numbers 

 ma}' be captured and destroyed. It is also possible to spray 

 the grass in the line of their march with arsenical solutions. 

 These should not be used to pasture stock until the poison 

 has had time to be washed out and no harm will be done. 

 The trenches serve to prevent also the migration into wheat 

 and corn or oat fields if adopted early enough. The species 

 is parasitized quite extensively and when they become 

 abundant the parasites also increase rapidly. Their increase 

 is greater than that of the army worm. In this way there is 

 a great check of the army worm. One of the most important 

 of these parasites is the tachina fly which is closely related 

 to the house fly, blow fly, etc. There are other parasites 

 which are quite valuable also. 



Cut Worms. — The species known generally as cut worms 

 are distributed through several genera and there are a 

 great many species that occur in pastures and meadows, 

 corn lands, and cotton, some of them are very abundant and 

 destructive and some may be considered as annual pests. 

 They usually live primarily upon grass and in the early 

 spring migrate into gardens and cultivated ground, where 

 their destruction becomes very evident. One of the most 

 im])ortant preventives is attention to grass land in autumn 

 adjacent to or upon the area that is to be planted in garden 

 or field crops. Tomato plants may be protected by tin 

 cans, or metal strips bent into cylinders and placed around 

 the plants and the cut worms may be killed by distributing 

 bunches of poisoned clover among the plants to be i)rotecte(l. 

 Some of the species are also attracted to light, and captures 

 of the adults will serve some ])ur])ose in reducing the numbers. 

 A feature of the work of cut worms not usually recognized 



