Army Worms 



137 



is composed of a whole group of languages. There 

 is a printed language, a spoken language, the lan- 

 guage of the biologist,, the language of the doctor, 

 the language of the surveyor, and the language of 

 the electrician, etc., but not many 

 of these fellows understand each 

 other's language. Then there is 

 the language of the boys, which 

 very few grown people ever use, 

 and the scientist is one who does 

 not use it. But all this is to tell 

 you that the army " worm '" 

 not a worm! 



When these caterpillars start 

 a campaign, they take no pro- 

 visions with them, but live 

 on the country. They will 

 strip every vestige of gTeen 

 from the fruit top of the 

 oats, rye, wheat and timothj^ (I'ig- 138) leaving 

 only a straight, bare stalk standing. 



The sketch you have with this (Fig. 135) is 

 one I made from the live caterpillar while it was 

 chewing off the end of a timothy stalk. Fig. 138 

 shows a head of grain before and after the visit of 



