OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 103 



it feeds on no other plant,* and certainly not on clover in its green 

 and growing condition, lor I have, in vain, endeavored to feed it with 

 such. Nor is a worm that is so fastidious as to touch none other but 

 clover hay, likely to prove a general feeder. 



ITS PAST HISTORY. 



For many years grievous complaints were made in this country 

 of a worm which infested clover, both in the stack and mow, and 

 spoiled it for feeding purposes by interweaving and covering it with 

 abundant white silken web and black excrement, much resembling 

 coarse gun-powder. Frequently the silken matting is so dense that 

 the hay looks moldy, and it is not improbable that much of the "clot- 

 ting" and "burning" clover, so often referred to in our agricultural 

 journals, may be, in reality, the work of this worm. Harrisf refers to 

 certain "clover-worms, which have been found in clover, in various 

 parts of the country, and have often been seen spinning down from 

 lofts and mows where clover has been stowed away ;" and quotes Mr. 

 Stephen Sibley as having observed these clover-worms "suspended in 

 such numbers by their threads from a newly gathered clover mow, 

 and from the timbers of the building, as to be very troublesome and 

 oifensive to persons passing through the barn," and as stating that 

 "these insects were of a brown color, and about half an inch long." 

 These extracts evidently refer to the worm under consideration, as do 

 also the following, which will convey an excellent idea of its mode of 

 working: 



Clover Worms. — We are sorry to see by a letter from T. C. Ran- 

 dolph, Bucks Post Office, Coluinbiana county, Ohio, that this new 

 pest of farmers^ reported last j^ear by an Indiana correspondent, is 

 moving eastward. Mr. Randolph found "about eight inches of the 

 bottom of a clover stack so full of these clover-worms as to render 

 the hay unfit for use. They are half an inch long, of a dark brown 

 color, tapering each way, ridged, and hatched from cocoons [they 

 hatched from eggs, and spin the cocoons] resembling those of the 



*Mr. Towncnd Glover, of Washington, D. C, has, it is true, figured the larva in one of hLs 

 nnpuMislied plates of Lepidoptera (LXXIII, Fig. 25) on a head of green and blooming clover j but this 

 is simply a bUmder, and is certainly not based on any ascertained fact. 



Mrs. Mary Treat, of Vineland, X. J., commimicated to me the fact, some years ago, that she had 

 bred this insect from oak leaves, the wonns congTegating in a nest made by drawing the leaves together. 

 I am strongly inclined to think that she has mistaken for costalis the very closely allied olinalis. This 

 last I have myself bred from a larva found on oak leaves, but at once distinguished from that of costalis by 

 its greater size and by having a mottled head, and a broad subdorsal stripe darker than dorsmn and edged 

 both above and below with a narrower black line. It is so much like the larva of Tortrix pahidana 

 liobmson (which binds together the leaves of Oak with glistening white web interspersed with black 

 excrement) that I mistook it for that species, which I had jireviously bred. I have, conseqnently, no 

 detailed description of WxeoUnaUs lar^-a. [Upon inquiring of Mrs. Treat, since this note was A^Titten, 

 she informs me that she was wrong in refeiTing lier oak-bred species to costalis, but that — having saved 

 jio specimens — she is unable to detennine the real species.] 



t Ins. Inj. to Veg. , p. 456. 



