EXPERIMENTS ON THE COTTON-WORM. 57 
After the 1st of October, being engaged in geological work, it was 
my fortune to travel eastward and southward; you may believe I did not 
forget the Aletia. It may be of interest to record the fact forced upon 
me that, after six or eight miles to the east of the Mississippi Central 
Railroad, I found no more Cotton- Worm north of the Tallahatchie River. 
Ido not say none were there, because people take so little trouble to 
publish facts of the kind, but it does seem highly improbable, or I would 
have seen or heard of them. All that was peculiar, that might have 
acted as a barrier, was the unbroken line of forest, never less than one 
or two miles in width, constituting the growth of the river bottom. As 
soon as I passed south of this barrier, at New Albany (some 40 miles 
east), I got into the paradise of Cotton-Worms. They were everywhere, 
and increased in their pernicious effects as I advanced south. Yet not 
before I reached the middle belt of counties did I find farmers estimat- 
ing the damage as anything considerable. 
I cannot close this rambling, garrulous communication without a 
word about my old friends the Heliothids. They were exceedingly 
numerous in gardens and corn during the summer, but comparatively 
light on cotton. Probably this happened from there being a great deal 
of late corn, and because cotton was also late. Yet I satisfied many 
farmers that the damage done to what they call the middle erop early in 
August was beyond calculation. Not for this, though, have I referred 
to them, but to question the utility of lights to attract and destroy them, 
so commonly recommended in agricultural papers. At my sorghum 
camp [never saw asingle Heliothis ; not because there were none in the 
fields and woods. The worms of all ages could be found in the corn, 
whether hard, or late and young, and many in the cotton; not so nu- 
merous as they had been in July and August, but during the whole of 
September the flies could be found in the cotton fields. I have watched 
them by the hour slowly flitting from plant to plant, from about 4 p. m. 
till dark, capriciously tasting the secretions of nectar, or dropping an 
egg in a bud or square; but after dark I never was able to find one, on 
the wing or at rest. I had often noticed before that, though my win- 
dow opened low, and into the garden infested with these moths, it was 
not common for one of them to come to the light. 
And apropos to the question of their food-plants, I think I can add 
to the list the tree Cercis canadensis for the early spring, and among late 
summer and fall plants the varieties of Penstemon, so abundant in our 
woods. I did not verify my worm by rearing it to the imago in either 
case; but surely I cannot be mistaken in the larva and in his manner of 
work. Besides, during the latter part of the summer and fall I have 
frequently found the moth, in the woods, flying most commonly about 
different species of the low herbaceous Scrophulariacie. Once I found 
the worm (if not greatly deceived) nipping out the top bud of a Penste- 
mon. And I am now disposed to think that budded grasses—that is, 
with the top, when about to shoot up to bloom—eaten out was Heliothis’ 
