THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 95 



full grown, it is a little over one-fourth inch long (Fig. 37, a), and is 

 a soft whitish, legless grub, with a scaly head. Hence it can 

 always be readily distinguished from the larva of the Stalk-borer, 

 which has invariably sixteen legs, no matter how small it may be. 

 Unlike this last insect, it becomes a pupa (Fig. 37, b) within the po- 

 tato slalk which it inhabits; and it comes out in the beetle state about 

 the last of August or the beginning of September. The stalk inhab- 

 ited by the larva almost always wilts and dies, and this wilting is first 

 noticed in the latitude of St Louis, about the first of July, So far as 

 is at present known it attacks no other plant but the potato, and the 

 perfect beetle, like many other snout-beetles, must of course live 

 through the winter to reproduce its species in the following spring. 



Remedy. — Same as with the foregoing species. Burn all the vines 

 which wilt from its attacks — roots and all, for it almost always works 

 below ground. The Stalk-borer must be searched for, if one will be 

 sure of killing him as he leaves the stalk to transform; but as this 

 Stalk-weevil transforms within the vine, one may be pretty sure of 

 destroying it by burning the vines when they first wilt. 



THE POTATO OR TOMATO-WORM— Sphinx b-maculata, Haw. 

 (Lepidoptera, Sphing-ida;.) 



This well known insect, the larva of which is illustrated on the 

 opposite page (Fig. 38, A), is usually called the Potato-worm, but it is 

 far commoner on the closely allied tomato, the foliage of which it 

 often clears off very completely in particular spots in a single night. 

 Many persons are afraid to handle this worm, from an absurd idea that 

 it has the power of stinging with the horn on its tail. But this is a 

 vulgar error and the worm is totally incapable of doing any direct 

 harm to man, either with the conspicuous horn on its tail, or with any 

 hidden weapon that it may have concealed about its person. In fact, 

 this dreadful looking horn is not peculiar to the Potato- worm, but is 

 met with in almost all the larvas of the large and beautiful group to 

 which it belongs {Sphinx family.) It seems to have no special use, 

 but, like the bunch of hair on the breast of the turkey cock, to be a 

 mere ornamental appendage. 



When full-fed, which is usually about the last of August, the Po- 

 tato worm burrows under ground and shortly alterwards transforms 

 into the pupa state (Fig. 38, B). The pupa is often dug up in the spring 

 from ground where tomatoes or potatoes were grown in the preced- 

 ing season ; and most persons that meet with it suppose that the sin- 

 gular, jug-handled appendage at one end of it is its tail. In reality, 

 however, it is the tongue-case, and contains the long pliable tongue 

 which the future moth will employ in lapping up the nectar of the 

 flowers, before which, in the dusky gloom of some warm, balmy sum- 

 mer's evening, it hangs for a few moments suspended in the air, like 

 the glorified ghost of some departed botanist. 



The moth itself (Fig. 38, C ) was formerly confounded with the To- 



