136 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



pillars, after the death of the larger number, was removed and placed in 

 a separate box, with some blades of grass for food. Here it shortly 

 went into the pupal state within the grass, without forming a cocoon, 

 and after sixteen days of pupation disclosed its imago, which proved to 

 be Cramhus exsiccatus. 



In consideration of the poor success attending my attempts at rear- 

 ing the larvae, I wrote to a friend at Potsdam, requesting additional 

 examples at their present more advanced stage. A large number were 

 collected from beneath sticks, pieces of rails, leaves, stones, di*ied ex- 

 crements, etc., and sent to me. They pi-esented quite a different appear- 

 ance from the previous collections, but the difference was ascribed to ad- 

 ditional moltings. They, however, proved to be a distinct species — one 

 of the Noctuidce, known as Nephelodes violans, the caterpillars of which 

 had been named by Prof. Riley as the bronze-colored cut-worm. 



Cessation of the Ravages. 



My visit to St. Lawrence county must have been at about the time 

 of the greatest depredations of the caterpillars, perhaps a little later 

 for from that time they seemed to diminish: by the 25th of May they 

 were nearly completed, and by the end of the month it is thought that 

 they had entirely ceased. Reports published in the St. Lawrence Re- 

 ptibUcan from several of the county towns, under date of June 6th and 

 7th, mention their disappearance, and that the pastures which had 

 been eaten off were beginning to look green again — a gratifying evi- 

 dence that the roots had not been injured. 



Abundance of Cocoons, at Watertown, N. Y. 



On the 1st of July, a communication was received from Mr. J. Q. 

 Adams, of Watertown, N. Y., accompanied by material which gave the 

 first clue to the identification of this destructive pest. It undoubtedly 

 belonged to the Pyralidce. Its injuries had not been so serious in Jef- 

 ferson county as in St. Lawrence, yet in a pasture near Water- 

 town which had been infested by them, its cocoons occurred so numer- 

 ously, that a half-dozen could be taken from a piece of sod of the size 

 of one's hand. The cocoons were found with one end (the more loosely 

 constructed one) at the surface of the ground, and the other perpen- 

 dicularly beneath it among the roots of the grasses. A hundred or 

 more of these cocoons were kindly sent to me by Mr. Adams. Those 

 that I opened for examination confirmed the statement of Mr. Adams 

 that the transformation to the pupal state had not yet taken place, al- 

 though the cocoons had been formed at least a month before. 



The caterpillars which they contained were identical with my Pots- 

 dam alcoholic examples, although notably of a paler color than were 



