316 CUT WORMS — THEIR ENEMIES. 



The insect figured in Dr. Emmons' volume, plate 45, fig. 2 

 and mentioned in the text as being a common species of Agmtis, 

 is the Hadena arnica of Stephens. 



Although more than a dozen other species of Dart-moths are 

 known to me, those now described will suffice as examples of 

 the insects whose eggs produce the cut-worms. Though so 

 common, they are seldom seen in the day time, being then at 

 rest, secreted in dark situations, such as the crevices in stone 

 walls and the cracks under the clapboards of buildings. By 

 looking behind the window-shutters of my office at any time in 

 July or August, I am able to obtain specimens of the Devastating 

 Dart and one or two other less common species. 



These worms have several natural enemies. That universal 

 pest of the cornfield, the crow, visits the fields, equally as much 

 to obtain cut-worms as for corn, and would probably do but little 

 injury to the latter if he could find worms enough to glut his 

 appetite. Numbers of them are also destroyed by predaceous 

 insects. One of the most common of these is pretty generally 

 known to our farmers, who sometimes designate it the " cut- 

 worm's dragon," from its singular form and ferocious habits. It 

 is a large black and rather slender and flat larva of a beetle of 

 the family Carabidje, and I presume it is the Pa?igus caliginosus, 

 but those individuals which I have attempted to rear have 

 always perished before completing their growth. It is very 

 agile in its motions, and roots and buries itself under the loose 

 dirt with facility. "When not glutted with food, it is running 

 about incessantly, in search of these worms, and slays them with- 

 out mercy, with its powerful jaws seizing them commonly by 

 the throat, and regardless of their violent writhings and contor- 

 tions, sucking out the contents of their skins. M. F. Morrison, 

 of Bath, Steuben co., N. Y., gives some interesting particulars of 

 another insect enemy of the cut worm, in the Albany Cultivator, 

 vol. v, page 18. He says, " A few years since a remarkable insect, 

 somewhat resembling the black wasp, but longer, shaped some- 

 what more like the hornet, but of a shining black, and very 

 active, was pointed out to me as the natural enemy of the grub 

 worm. Its evolutions when on the ground were similar to that 



