Ee ee 
REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. * 913 
Professor Grote’s operations will appear by the following extract from 
a brief report submitted: 
Sm: In accordance with your favor of July 18 in which you directed me to visit the 
States of Georgia and Florida for the purpose of making observations on the insects 
injurious to the cotton plant, I proceeded to Savannah and during the following month 
of August made examinations of cotton fields at different points between Savannah 
and Atlanta. Having charged me especially with that phase of the cotton-worm in- 
quiry which comes under the head of migrations, I directed my chief attention to 
making observations and collecting information on the appearance and movements of 
the cotton-worm (Aletia argillacea). * * * 
A careful survey of the plantation of Dr. Lawton, near Savannah, from August 1 to 
August 7, and other cotton-patches in the vicinity convinced me that the worm had 
not then appeared. The statements made to me were to the effect that its earliest 
appearance was usually to be looked for about the middle of the month. Henry Gas- 
ton, engaged in planting cotton for nearly twenty years, said that the first brood of 
worms usually web up about the middle to latter part of August, giving a second 
brood in September. The worm was first noticed in the stronger cotton on the bottom 
lands. * * * Hehad observed the moth before the appearance of the worm, but 
had never noticed it in the early spring. 
This testimony is given as a sample of the information collected from various indi- 
viduals. While August seems to be the usual time for the appearance of the worm on 
the main-land on the coast of Georgia in the neighborhood of Savannah, the testi- 
‘mony of Dr. J. S. Lawton, on the sea islands off the coast of South Carolina to the 
northward of Savannah, is to the effect that the worm appears sometimes as early as 
July and is then usually excessively injurious to the long staple cottons. 
In Southwestern Georgia the worm is noticed as early as the last week in June in 
some years, and the main damage inflicted in the State seems to come from this quar- 
ter. The worm occurs there every year, though the date at which it is noticed varies. 
The question whether the earliest so-called ‘‘brood” is the first appearance of the 
worm in any quarter has been raised by yourself, and is one to which I hope to be able 
to pay close attention in the spring. 
For the present we must accept the testimony that the worm seems to advance from 
Southwest Georgia over the western and occasionally over the central portion of the 
State. It seems to come from Decatur to Baker, Calhoun, Dougherty, and Lee Coun- 
ties. According to present testimony its appearance is not simultaneous over this 
section of the State, the southern portions being first visited. 
From testimony collected by myself in Athens, on the. occasion of the meeting of 
the Agricultural Society of Georgia, the following counties are visited by the cotton- 
worm every year, though the exact time is not, according to testimony, the same: Cal- 
houn, Decatur, Dougherty, Lee, Macon, Schley, Taylor. : 
Counties in which the worm is not noticed every year are: Burke, Clarke, Fulton, 
Greene, Hancock, Jones, Monroe, Putnam, Richmond. 
It will be seen that the central portion of the State is less subject to the devastation 
of the cotton--vorm than the southwesternand western. * * * 
I received in November, 1878, fresh instructions from you to proceed to Georgia for 
- the purpose of ascertaining whether I could find eggs from the last moths on any por- 
tion of the plant, and any facts bearing upon the hibernation of the moth. On the 
plantations near Savannah I found that the worm was first noticed the current year 
on September 4. I found a large number of the chrysalides yet on the plant on Novem- 
ber 10 to 25. The nights were frosty andthe leaf withered and scant. In places shel- 
tered by trees the leaf was still green, and here I found eitiee es 16) a few caterpil- 
lars not yet spun up. A large number of the chrysalides were empty; about 40 per 
cent. contained parasites. Less than a quarter of the chrysalides contained the unde- 
weloped. moth. * .* * 
Under your instructions I visited the Georgia sea-islands during the end of Novem- 
ber and beginning of December. I found that the worm had appeared this year in 
September as on the main-land, but laterin the month. It had, also, not spread, and 
had attacked certain corners of the fields, where I now found the chrysalides. None of 
these contained undeveloped moths; they were either empty or ichneumonized. There 
had been no second brood of worms on the islands, according to testimony collected 
by me, and which was borne out by my own observations. * * * ; 
As the result of my late observations I may say that the fact, I think first announced 
by myself, is confirmed, that the cotton-worm passes the winter, when it survives at 
all, as a moth, and that the last fall worms do not leave the plant to web up. The 
full history of the worm in Georgia can be made out when the country is fully explored 
in the spring and before the first appearance of the worm in numbers. It will then 
be made clear where the first large numbers of the worm come from; whether they 
are the results of fresh invasions of the moth or are the product of a first generation 
from eggs of hibernating individuais. * * * 
