130 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



preached, but as soon as alarmed they quickly withdrew beneath the 

 surface. 



Observations at Potsdam. — I next visited Potsdam, St. Lawrence 

 county, where the ''worm" was reported as very abundant, and 

 as having been very destructive. The reports had not been at all 

 exaggerated. Hundreds of acres of pasturage in the town of Potsdam 

 had been destroyed, and not a single farm, it was believed, had escaped 

 attack. Under the kind escort of Mr. E. Clarkson, I was able to ex- 

 amine the pastures and meadows upon several of the farms where the 

 injuries had been the most severe. My observations upon the farm of 

 Mr. L. Benson may serve to give an idea of the seriousness of these in- 

 juries, not much exceeding what was seen by me elsewhere. An upland 

 pasture, containing fifty acres, which, ten days previous to my visit, had 

 afforded good pasturage, was now entirely brown. No grass could be 

 seen in glancing over its whole extent, except over a narrow strip 

 which had been used as a roadway when farming purposes necisssitated 

 occasional passing from one field to another. This, from some un- 

 known cause, had remained green.* Upon stooping down and care- 

 fully examining the surface, amongst the sorrelandother weeds which 

 had not been eaten, an occasional blade of grass, overlooked by the 

 caterpillars, could be discovered, averaging perhaps one blade to the 

 square foot, so completely had the grass been destroyed. Hundreds of 

 dead and dried, or nearly dead larvse, attached to stems and stalks 

 of weeds, or last year's grass, at a height of from six to twelve inches 

 above the ground, could be seen at one glance of the eye, by placing 

 the head near the ground and looking over the field. In all proba- 

 bility most of these were victims to starvation, and not to parasitism, 

 as at first thought, for no parasites were subsequently obtained from 

 a large collection made of them. 



A meadow belonging to Mr. Benson, adjoining the above pasture, 

 and bearing a fine growth of grass, was seen to present a few spots 

 having a suspicious appearance. One of these was examined, and in a 

 small piece of sod six inches square cut by a spade, about twenty of the 

 caterpillars were found, several of which (perhaps all, previous to their 

 disturbance by tearing the sod apart) were contained in the green 

 tubular cases previously mentioned. As a test of the distribution of 

 the caterpillars throughout the meadow, pieces of sod were taken up 

 at random in several places, by walking two or three rods with closed 

 eyes and then inserting the spade in the ground. In each instance, 

 larvae were discovered. In view of this discovery, not previously sus- 

 pected, Mr. Benson proposed at once turning in his stock and feeding 

 off the grass before it should meet with the destruction to which it 



♦Perhaps the larvae had found the soil too much compacted from even the moderate 

 amount of travel over it, to permit of its penetration for the construction of their subter- 

 ranean galleries. , 



