333 



weather. When the older caterpilLxrs are suddenly toucheij, they have the habit 

 of doubling themselves up and springing to a distance of several times their 

 length, but when undisturbed, and not .feeding, they appear to rest on the leaf 

 with the fore part of the body elevated and somewhat curved, sometimes keep- 

 ing up a species of swinging or jerking motion from side to side, as if enjoying 

 the heat of the sun. 



This caterpillar is furnished with six pectoral, eight ventral, and two anal feet, 

 of which, however, the two anterior ventral ones are imperfect, small, and ap- 

 parently useless, so that its mode of progression somewhat resembles that of the 

 span-worm, or looper, of the north. 



In fifteen or twenty days after the caterpillar has attained its full size, it 

 ceases to feed. It then doubles down the edge of a leaf, and fastens it with its 

 own silk to the main part of the same leaf, or by webbing several leaves together, 

 forming thereby a very loosely-spun cocoon. In this it transforms into a chry- 

 salis, which at first is green, but in a short time after changes to a chestnut- 

 brown, or even to almost black. 



The first brood I raised were fifteen days in the chrysalis state before making 

 their appearance as perfect moths ; but, as this happened in a cold room and 

 screened from the sun, I am of the opinion that, when they are exposed to a 

 warm sun, in the open fields, the time must necessarily be much shorter. I 

 raised one caterpillar late in the fall, which was even thirty days before emerg- 

 ing from its cocoon ; but this I attributed entirely to the cold weather, and non- 

 exposure to the sun. This fact would tend to show that the hatching of the 

 chrysalis may be delayed, by peculiar circumstances, until long after the natural 

 time. 



The tail of the chrysalis is furnished Avith several small hooks, bent inAvard, 

 by means of which it is enabled to hold fast to the loose web of which the cocoon 

 is formed while emerging from the chrysalis skin, or, in case of accident, to pre- 

 vent it from falling out of the cocoon during the prevalence of strong winds. 



There have been many speculations regarding the origin and periodical visits 

 of this moth. In 1843, Mr. Whiteraarsh B. Seabrook read a " Memoir on the 

 Cotton Plant " before the State Agricultural Society in South Carolina, in which 

 he says : 



"That the cotton-moth survives the winter is nearly certain. An examination of the neigh- 

 boring woods, especially after a mild winter, has been often successfully made for that pur- 

 pose. They were seen by the writer in May last, in the edge of a belt of pines, within a few 

 yards of a cotton-field. In the winter of 1825, Benjamin Eeyuolds, of St. John's, Colleton, 

 found them in the woods, principally on the cedar-busli, encased alive in their cover, imper- 

 vious to water, and secured to a twig by a thread. The pupfe, wrapped in cotton leaves, 

 from their bleak exposure, invariably die on the approach of cold weather." 



From what was stated to me by some of the best planters in Florida, it M'ould 

 seem that this caterpillar appears on their plantations more or less, almost if 

 not every year, and sometimes in a most unaccountable manner. Mr. E. Rich- 

 ards, of Cedar Keys, furnishes a statement which would seem to prove that it 

 is migratory in its habits, as there is no other method of accounting for its sudden 

 presence, except that, having previously existed on some other plant or weed, 

 it had left it for food more congenial to its taste, although it has been asserted 

 that the real caterpillar will eat nothing but cotton. He says : 



" The last of July, 1845, these caterpillars made their appearance in a small field of three 

 or four acres of sea-island cotton, planted on Way Key as an experiment to see it cotton 

 could be advantageously cultivated on the Keys, no other cotton having been previously 

 planted within eighty miles of them; but the whole crop was devoured. The caterpillar 

 was at the same time destroying the cotton in the interior of the country." 



In a statement made by Mr. William Munroe, of Gadsden county, Florida, to 

 the Agricultural Department, he appears to think sea-island cotton not so liable 

 to be attacked as the short-staple, when the two varieties are planted together. 

 In his letter he says : 



