49 



THE ARMY WORM. 



(by d. w. coquillet.) 



{Leuccmia unipuncta, Haworth.) 



(Order Lepidopteea. Family Noctuid^.) 



[Hidden beneath boards, clots of earth, etc., or marching in large 

 companies ; a naked sixteen-legged caterpillar, whose body is marked 

 with lines and stripes of white, yellow, brown and greenish ash; 

 usually most destructive to fields of oats and timothy.] 



The Army Worm has been treated of so frequently that a full 

 account of it in this place would be superfluous ; instead, then, of 

 going into details concerning its life-history, I will content myself 

 with merely giving a few facts which have come under my notice, 

 chiefly during the past season (1881). 



Previous to this year I had reared only one of these insects to the 

 perfect state. In the year 1876 I obtained an Army Worm from 

 some earth that had just been thrown out of a shallow ditch. It 

 pupated on the 9th of July and disclosed the perfect insect eleven 

 days later. 



On the 14th of July of the present year (1881) I found an Army 

 Worm nearly full grown, hidden at the base of one of the upper 

 leaves of a stalk of corn ; this stalk was a small one, and the hiding 

 place of the worm was about one foot from the ground. Six days 

 later I found another Army Worm in a similar situation, and toward 

 the evening of the same day I found a third in the very act of 

 devouring the undeveloped terminal leaves of a stalk of corn which 

 measured about two and one-half feet in height. The presence of 

 these worms could readily be detected, not only by the large holes 

 which had been eaten in the leaves, but also by the large excre- 

 ments that had collected at the base of the leaves. The Army Worm 

 taken July 14 pupated four days later and was changed to a moth 

 on the third of the following month (Augast), The other two worms 

 —4 



