SB 

 818 

 C578 

 ENT 



No. 4, Second Series. 



Jnited States Department of Agriculture, 



DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



THE ARMY WORM. 



(Leucania unipuncta Haw.) 

 GENERAL APPEARANCE AND METHOD OF WORK. 



In the months of May and June, and sometimes as late as July, 

 wheat, oats, and other small grains, corn, timothy, 

 blue grass, and other grasses, but seldom or never 

 clover, are occasionally overrun by multitudes of 

 naked striped caterpillars about an inch and a quar- 

 ter long and a quarter of an inch in diameter, when 

 fidl-grown, rather dark in appearance and closely re- 

 sembling Fig. 1. They usually travel in one direction 

 from one field to another, destroying the crop as they 

 go. They have a habit of climbing the seed stalks 

 and cutting off the heads of timothy grass and of the 

 small grains. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



The army worm seems to be an indigenous North 

 American insect, and on this continent is most 

 abundant in the United States east of the Rocky 

 Mountains. Isolated specimens have been found 

 in England and South America, and the moth has 

 been captured in India, Java, Australia, and New 

 Zealand. It is nowhere known as an especially 

 destructive species, however, outside of the United 

 States. The region in which it especially flourishes 

 extends from eastern Iowa to Maine and from 

 northern Texas to northern Alabama. East of the 

 Blue Ridge Mountains its southerly range as an 

 injurious species extends only to northern North 

 Carolina. The moth is often captured outside 

 these limits and frequently in considerable num- 

 bers, but the caterpillar does not seem elsewhere 

 to be a factor in agriculture, 

 32363— No. 4—06 



Fig. 1.— The Army 

 Worm: Full-grown 

 larva; natural size. 

 (From Comstock.) 



