40 



SECOND ANNUAL REPORT OF 



within the cocoon by means of several very minute hooks with which 

 the tail is furnished. 



At Figure 13 a, this moth 

 fis represented with the wings 

 expanded, and at ft, with the 

 r y wings closed. The general 

 color of the upper surface is a 

 golden-yellow inclining to 

 V *" V% ^V buff, with a faint olive tint 



' * near the outer or posterior 



margin. The fore wings are crossed, as in the above figures, by more 

 or less distinct, irregular lilac-colored lines. But the chief character- 

 istic is a dark slate-colored, or black spot on the front wings, in which 

 spot there are paler scales forming almost a double pupil as repre- 

 sented in the figures, while between this spot and the base of the 

 wings there is a much smaller pure white dot. In general color and 

 in the position of the larger spot, this moth bears a remarkable re- 

 semblance to that of the true Army-worm of the Northern and Middle 

 States. 



Mr. Affleck, who certainly had abundant opportunities for observ- 

 ing the fact, assured me that this moth rests in the position shown in 

 Figure 13, ft, namely, with the head downwards. He wrote on August 

 22d, 1868 : " The Cotton moth ( Ophinsa xylina of Harris in his corres- 

 pondence with myself) never alights in any other position, or if by 

 accident it first assumes another position, it instantly wheels around 

 head dovm." 



According to the best authority, there are three different broods 

 of worms during the year, the first appearing in June or July, and the 

 last, which does the most damage, appearing in August or Septem- 

 ber, or even later. Mr. Lyman, in the little work already referred to, 

 says: "That nature has made no provision by which either the fly, 

 the worm, the chrysalis or the eggs, can survive the winter or exist 

 for any length of time where the cotton plant is not a perennial." 

 But this is surely an error, which Mr. Lyman would never have made, 

 had he possessed a better knowledge of insect-life ; and as Mr. Glover 

 found that the chrysalis was killed by the slightest frost, the insect 

 evidently winters over in the moth state, as do many others belong- 

 ing to the same tribe. Mr. W. B. Seabrook gives strong evidence that 

 this is the case, in a il Memoir on the Cotton Plant," read in 1843, be- 

 fore the State Agricultural Society of South Carolina, wherein he says : 

 "That the Cotton Moth survives the winter is nearly certain. An ex- 

 amination of the neighboring woods, especially after a mild winter, has 

 often been successfully made for that purpose." And Dr. Phares 

 states positively that the moth hybernates in piles of cotton seed 

 under shelter, under bark and in crevices of trees in dense forests and 

 other secluded places, and that it may often be seen on pleasant days 

 in winter. 



