61 



most seemed about half grown ; but by October 10 the greater part 

 of them were already in the ground, where most of them still con- 

 tinue. Few pupae occurred at this time, most being in the short- 

 ened, prepupal stage. From the larvse bred in the laboratory, col- 

 lected from wheat fields October 11 and kept in a room without 

 artificial heat, three moths emerged November 3, three more Novem- 

 ber 12, and another between that date and the '28th. The remain- 

 der are still alive in the earth as pupae, at the present writing 

 (December). 



The pupae in the field were usually buried from one to two inches 

 beneath the surface, erect or inclined, in smooth-walled earthen cells. 

 Not a few had only partly hidden themselves before the necessities 

 of metamorphosis overtook them. 



From the above data it is not easy to construct any consistent 

 calendar of this species, the statement made by Riley in the Ento- 

 mologist and Botanist for December 1870, seeming to conflict with 

 the other observations reported. The larvae occurring that year in 

 "August and the fore part of September" in Missouri, if they really 

 gave origin to a second brood, which "began to make their presence 

 manifest towards the end of October," must have produced the 

 imagos late in September and early in October, — that is at the very 

 period when the brood of larvae observed by us this fall were com- 

 pleting their growth and entering the ground for pupation, not to 

 emerge until spring. In fact, the statement above quoted seems in- 

 consistent with Eiley's own report of his observations for 1868, when 

 larvae received October 10, entered the ground later in the month, 

 and were believed to hibernate as pupae, pupation in 1868 thus being 

 made synchronous with the occurrence of growing larvae of a later 

 brood in 1870. As Riley rests the above cited report for 1870 on 

 no precise data, but makes it only as a general statement, it is 

 perhaps not impossible that it involves an error of inference. More 

 probably, however, it represents exceptional conditions. If we thus 

 exclude it either as irreconcilable with observed facts, or as an un- 

 usual occurrence, we have left self-consistent proof of three broods 

 at the South and of at least two, and possibly three, as far to the 

 north as Central Illinois. The larvae of the first of these appears 

 in May and June, pupating in the latter month and in July, and 

 giving the imago late in this month. A second brood of worms oc- 

 curs in the South in August, and a third late in September and 

 early in October. The last corresponds to the observations in Illi- 

 nois this autumn, and probably hibernates as pupae, with scattering 

 escapes of autumnal imagos, such as have occurred in our own 

 breeding cages this year. 



CHARACTER AND EXTENT OF INJURIES TO VEGETATION. 



As far back as 1845, this species was reported to attack corn, 

 sugar cane, and upland rice. 



In Georgia, in 1851, the grass worms devoured grass, young grain, 

 and almost every green thing which came in their path. 



"Instances have been known," says Mr. Glover, "in which, urged 

 as they we^e by necessity and starvation, they actually devoured 

 stacks of odder that were stored away for winter consumption. 



