314 CUT WORMS GOTHIC DART JMOTH 



these insects being as yet far from complete. My young cucum- 

 bers being always enclosed in boxes open at the bottom and top, 

 are never molested by cut-worms, and seldom by other insects j 

 hence I know not the worm which depredates on them. 



As already stated, the particular species of moth or miller 

 into which either of our American cut- worms changes, has never 

 been ascertained. Most of the species, however, pertain to the 

 genus Jlgrotis, of the family Noctuidje, or Owlet-moths. In 

 England the insects of this genus are named " Dart moths," from 

 a peculiar spot or streak which many of them have near the base 

 of their fore wings, resembling the ' point of a dart or spear. 

 Much the most common species of this genus in the state of New- 

 York, can be nothing else than the Gothic Dart Jlgrotis sub- 

 gothica of the British entomologists, (Plate 3, fig. 1). This was 

 first described by Mr. Ha worth in the year 1810, and is current 

 in all the books as a British insect. Mr. Stephens, however, says 

 it is very rare, onl)' three or four specimens having been found 

 in England. I doubt not it is an American insect, the eggs or 

 larvse of which have accidently been carried to England, pro- 

 bably in the earth in which plants have been transported thither. 

 Here it is one of the most common of those moths which come 

 in at the open windows of our houses on warm summer evenings, 

 attracted by the lights of the candles. I have thus taken more 

 than a dozen specimens in an hour. It begins to appear early 

 in July and continues till September, and in Illinois I met with 

 it on one of the last days of this month. Its wings when spread 

 measure from over an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half 

 across. It is of a grayish-brown color, and the fore wings have 

 a broad whitish stripe on the outer margin from the base to be- 

 yond the middle, and another branching from this and running 

 through the centre of the wing. Between these whitish stripes 

 is a pale triangular spot having its outer side wholly confluent 

 with the outer stripe, and back of this is a second pale spot 

 which is kidney-shaped, the space before, between and behind 

 these spots being black or dark brown. And extending from the 

 base of the wing along the inner side of the inner stripe is a 

 broad black or dark brown streak (representing the dart head 



