OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 23 



Such is Mr. Reese's most unsafe reasoning, which he will very soon 

 change, with increased experience. The first brood of Codling-moth 

 larvae seldom live more than a month as such, though those of the 

 second brood may and do live six and seven ; and I need hardly say 

 that by the same style of reasoning which Mr. Reese adopts, one could 

 easily make out that no insect which produces more than one genera- 

 tion a year could hibernate at all. 



• NATURAL E?\TEMIES. 



The Cotton-worm must have numerous enemies among its own 

 class, but nothing seems to have been recorded of such. Black-birds 

 and turkeys are said, by correspondents of the Department of Agri- 

 culture, to greedily devour the worms, and it has been recommended 

 to introduce the English sparrow into the southern cotton-fields for 

 this purpose. This bird will doubtless do better there than in the 

 more northern States. Some that were liberated in Lafayette park, 

 St. Louis, a year ago, have done remarkably well, and have already 

 usurped the place of some of the native birds at the Arsenal. 



RANGE OF THE IN SECT -OTHER QUESTIONS. 



The Cotton- worm is generally supposed to be a purely Southern 

 species, and to be confined to the cotton plant for food ; yet the moth 

 has been repeatedly captured as far north as Chicago, both by Mr. A. 

 Bolter and Mr. O. S. Westcott ; and the indication is very strong that 

 those moths were bred there, and that their larvae fed on some other 

 plant than cotton. These facts would also seem to invalidate a theory 

 propounded by Mr. Glover, of the Department of Agriculture, to 

 account for the "general prevalence of the insect on the Gulf coast, 

 and its comparative scarcity and late appearance in more northern 

 regions." He thinks "that in the more northern portion of the cotlon- 

 belt the frosts of winter destroy the insect in all its stages, unless in 

 situations of unusual protection, but that in tiie more southern por- 

 tion, where severe frosts rarely occur, they survive the risks of win- 

 ter, and as they increase, by their repeated generations during the 

 summer, they migrate northward in the fly-state (the perfect insect) 

 to 'fresh fields and pastures new.'" 



If the insect can withstand a Chicago winter, it would not likely 

 be frozen to death even in the northernmost portion of the cotton- 

 belt. Indeed, hibernating insects, when once in a state of dormancy, 

 generally resist very severe cold ; and it strikes me that the longer 

 seasons, enabling the production of a greater number of annual gene- 

 rations, on the Gulf coast, is sufficient to account for the facts above 

 stated; especially as there are no records of migrations of cotton 



