The Home of Seirarctia Echo. 
By AnniE TRUMBULL SLOSSON. 
In the Spring of 1888 I was so fortunate as to capture at Punta 
Gorda, Charlotte Harbor, Florida, two specimens of Sezrarctia echo 
A. & S. I had known the moth previously only by the meagre descrip- 
tion and accompanying plate in Insects of Georgia; and few of the 
entomologists to whom I showed my specimens had cver seen the species. 
Mr. Henry Edwards thought the fact of this capture worthy of a note in 
Ent. Amer., and I was very proud of my treasures, 
In February of the present year I was again in Florida, at Ormond, 
on the Halifax River. ‘The hotel is situated on a strip of land, from a 
half to three-quarters of a mile in width, between river and ocean, called 
locally ‘‘the peninsula.” A few evenings after my arrival there I took 
upon a lighted window a fine specimen of S. echo. The next night 
another flew into the reading room. Soon afterward in a walk through 
the woods I found two or three others, apparently just emerged. In the 
midst of my excitement over these captures | met an intelligent resident 
of the town, and spoke of what I had found, their interest and rarity. 
The lady looked surprised and exclaimed: ‘‘Why, vou surely cannot 
mean our common moth that comes from the army worm!” I had, 
previous to this, heard much ofa very destructive caterpillar of the pen- 
insula, which travelled in vast armies, devouring all in its path. And 
now I was to learn that this dreaded pest was the larva of the beautiful 
moth, so rare in collections, Abbott and Smith’s echo. I talked with 
many of the Ormond people on this subject, and collected many facts. 
These larvae overrun the whole peninsula and do great damage to garden 
plants. They are an annual pest, but in certain years are greatly in- 
creased in numbers. All my informants agree upon one point, that 
these larve invariably travel towards the north, and are never seen 
heading towards any other point of the compass. So well is this under- 
stood that, in protecting their gardens from the ravages of these cater- 
pillars the inhabitants dig trenches on the south, east and west sides of 
the ground, leaving the north side open; and none ever enter from that 
. direction. A lady writes: ‘‘My father built a sand-wall about a foot 
high around the south and east sides of our place, with the perpendicular 
side out, and it kept them out for a good while, until they undermined 
it by constant crawling up and down in an endless procession, determ- 
ined to get by. He had no wall on the north side, but not a worm 
came in.” She also writes, ‘‘They eat everything, almost,—except 
orange trees—but their favorite food is anything growing from a bulb, 
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ENTOM OLOGICA AMERICANA. VOL. V. 7 AvuGuST 1889, 
