214 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



That Heliothis armiger is distributed over the whole South 

 of Europe, Southern Asia, Africa, New Holland, and North 

 and South America, is a well-known fact, but scarcely comes 

 within the scope of these lines, as Cowper's words, 



" The tbeme a worm ! " 



would most likely be a fitting title for the preceding as well 

 as for the following remarks, which tend to show that, although 

 we are fully informed about the perfect insect, we cannot say 

 so much with regard to the larva said to belong to it, and 

 commonly called the " army-worm," inasmuch as there exist 

 apparently well-founded suspicions that this name (like 

 " wire-worm" amongst the Coleoplera) has to do duty for 

 several species, and at all events for more than one kind of 

 destructive caterpillar. 



It rests with American Entomologists to inform us whether 

 the real " army-worm " belongs to Heliothis armiger of 

 Hiibner, as is generally supposed, or to Noctua xylina of 

 Say, as stated by this author in his ' Correspondence relative 

 to the Insect that destroys the Cotton-plant' (last reprinted 

 in ' The Complete Writings,' &c., of Thomas Say, ed. Le- 

 conte, 1859, vol. i. p. 369 — 371), by Miss Morris, in ihe 

 * American Agriculturist,' and also in Harris's ' Insects Inju- 

 rious to Vegetation' (ed. Flint, 1862, p. 457). But curiously 

 enough the Appendix of the work last mentioned contains 

 an account, compiled from various " authentic " sources, re- 

 ferring the very same "army-worm " to Leucania unipunctata 

 of Haworth, which is synonymous with L. extranea of Guenee 

 and with L. impunctata of Stephens, together with figures of 

 the larva, pupa and imago, and also of two Ichneumons prey- 

 ing on the first. 



Several other papers on the same subject have been pub- 

 lished by Burnett in the ' Proceedings of the Boston Natural 

 History Society' for 1854, and still more important ones by 

 T. Glover in the Reports of the Committee for Patents, pub- 

 lished at Washington in 1858 and 1859 ; but enough has 

 already been brought forward to show that more than one 

 enigma awaits solution in this inquiry. 



Reasons similar to the above will probably always prevent 

 us from being able to say with certainty to which species of 

 moth the earlier American records of the appearance and 



