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whether these insects really possessed any such instinets, the inference 
having been that one variety was as acceptable to them as another. 
Bearing upon this point I have obtained some interesting information, 
which, though by far too slender a thread on which to hang a positive 
assertion, yet forms sufficient grounds for a suspicion that the species 
may possess some exceedingly fine instincts regarding plant tissue. 
In the month of September, 1888, a field of oat stubble on the exper- 
iment farm was subdivided, two plats each several acres in extent being 
sown, the-one to velvet chaff and the other to Michigan Amber wheat. 
Between the two was a narrow strip comprising a mixture of both 
varieties. From the beginning of preparation of the ground to the end 
of harvest this year all conditions excepting seed were exactly the same. 
The attacks of these larve were quite severe during June, and on the 
14th of this month an examination of the plats above mentioned devel- 
oped the fact that in the velvet chaff the destroyed heads outnumbered 
those in the Michigan Amber in the proportion of about four to one. 
Furthermore, the narrow strip of mixed grain intervening showed very 
much the same feature. I confess that I am unable to detect any rea- 
son for this difference in the severity of the attack other than in the 
nature of the straw ; that of the velvet chaff being under ordinary con- 
ditions a few days earlier in maturing, yet it is known among farmers 
as possessing a softer straw than the Michigan Amber, which fact pre- 
supposes the tissue of the stem immediately above the upper joint to 
be to a corresponding degree more tender and juicy at the time of ovi- 
position by the females. 
THE WESTERN STRIPED CUTWORM. 
(Agrotis herilis Grote.) 
The present yeare has been conspicuous for the severity of cutworm 
attacks, especially in corn-fields, the most abundant and pernicious 
species thus engaged being the one under consideration. Ordinarily 
we look for these dusky, semi-subterranean destroyers in fields of re- 
cently broken grass lands, but this season their ravages were not to be 
limited by any such proscribed bounds, and old lands suffered with the 
new. 
On the 28th of May I visited a field of corn a few miles out of the city 
of La Fayette, which had been nearly ruined by cutworms, notwith- 
standing the present was the seventh consecutive crop of corn which 
had been planted on this ground. In fact, so abundant were the pests, 
that from amass of dried weeds and earth, covering a couple of square 
feet, and which had been left by the plows, I took 36 individuals, and 
a clod a few inches away concealed 5 more; the whole number evi- 
dently belonging to the same species. 
The only apparent cause for this congregating in corn-tields, and in 
this one in particular, is that during the ovipositing season last sum- 
