5 
in the course of an hour or so it changes to brown. The insect remains 
in this condition for a period varying from one week to thirty days. 
The adult insect.—The perfect insect or imago of the cotton caterpillar 
is a rather small moth of an olive-gray color, sometimes with a some- 
what purplish luster. Its wings expand from 1} to 14 inches. The 
markings of the wings are indicated in the figure. The moth is a night 
flyer and hides during the day, starting up and flying with a swift, 
somewhat darting motion when disturbed. After sunset it takes wing 
and flies about, laying its eggs or searching for food. It feeds, in fact, 
rather extensively, frequenting neighboring flowering plants and also 
the nectar glands of the leaves of cotton. Fruit, as it ripens, also 
attracts these moths, and is frequently seriously injured by them. The 
tongue or proboscis of the moth is curiously modified and fitted for 
piercing the skin and tissues of ripe fruit. It is said that they are able 
to puncture hard green pears, the effect of the puncture being a dis- 
coloration of the skin for some distance around. The female begins to 
lay her eggs in from two to four days after leaving the chrysalis, and 
each individual lays from 300 to 600 eggs. With five consecutive and 
rapidly developed genera- 
tions theoccasionally extraor- 
dinary numbers of the late 
broods are not to be won- 
dered at. 
| Number of broods or genera- 
tions.—The observations of 
Mr. Schwarz in south Texas 
in 1879 show that at least Eid. 3.—Cotton worm moth: a, with wings expanded ip 
flight; b, wings closed, at rest—natural size (after Riley). 
seven, and probably even 
more, generations are produced there. Fully as many probably develop 
in Florida. The general belief in the South up to the time of the 
beginning of the cotton-worm investigation was that there were three 
generations only, since three “crops” of worms only were customarily 
observed. The early generations, however, were overlooked on account 
of their small numbers, and, in fact, in the northern portions of the 
cotton belt the general idea was correct enough, since northward-flying 
moths in general do not oviposit in fields in this region until compar- 
atively late in the season. The moths hibernate only in the extreme 
southern portions of the cotton belt, as will be shown in the next 
section, and begin to lay their eggs as early as March, or perhaps even 
earlier, in south Texas and Florida. Two generations are rapidly 
developed, and then, in these localities, a confusion of generations com- 
mences on account of the retardation of development in certain indi- 
viduals and acceleration in certain others. Moths from the end of 
March on are constantly flying out from these points and, carried by 
the prevailing southerly winds, settle in more northern fields and stock 
a certain number of plants with eggs. Moths developing from cater- 
pillars hatching from these eggs in turn stock the fields in which they 

