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it confine its mischief to a single ear. Leaving the one on which it 

 has been engaged, it passes to a second, which involves a journey- 

 down one stalk and up another. This is probably performed in the 

 night. Its mandibles are capable of gnawing not merely the juicy, 

 milkey kernels of the young ear, but the harder, riper ones of the 

 ear when nearly mature and ready to cut. In cutting my own corn, 

 yesterday, I found many specimens of this insect, and there now 

 lies before me an ear almost uninjured and nearly dry, the kernels 

 being too hard to yield to the nail, and full of meal when broken, 

 in which is an almost full-grown Corn-worm engaged in eating these 

 hard grains. The worm has attacked the ear in two or three places, 

 and eaten about half a dozen corns, so that it is very plain that it 

 has not spent its whole existence in this ear. The infested ears 

 may often be detected, on passing through the field, by seeing a 

 hole in the husk, through which the worm has entered the ear, and 

 a few days ago I saw a half-grown worm gnawing its way into an 

 ear, and making just such a hole. When I caught it, it had bored 

 through the outer sheath only, and was at work on the second." 



In a postscript, Mr. Claypole states that he found a smaller worm 

 eating kernels on a ripe ear of corn. Professor Eiley was at first 

 of opinion that they could not eat the ripe ears, but, in a later 

 article, states that they had been found doing so. The traveling 

 habit mentioned in the quotation agrees with the same habit noticed 

 in their feeding on the cotton-plant. I have noticed holes through 

 the husks surrounding an ear containing worms, and also that if 

 the husks were long when ready to pupate, they would make 

 their egress by gnawing through the husks. If an ear is placed in 

 the breeding cage where the worms are confined, they gnaw through 

 the husks to get to the kernels, even if they are loosened at the end. 



From all I can gather for this year — 1881 — the Corn-worm seems 

 to have done less damage in Illinois than usual. The excessive dry 

 weather prevented there being any yield of corn in much of the 

 southern part of the State, but the same cause prevented a large 

 share of the moths from the early brood emerging from the chrysa- 

 lids to provide for a second brood, so that what little corn there 

 was raised was comparatively free from worms. Several corres- 

 pondents in different parts of the State say substantially, "sweet 

 corn injured by them but none in the fields." During the early 

 part of September I spent a few days in Lawrence county. In ex- 

 amining a field of corn belonging to a Mr. Pence, near Lawrence- 

 ville. I found that not mare than one ear in five or six examined 

 contained worms, and none of these were badly eaten. 

 ■ The eggs from which the Corn-worms are produced are deposited 

 on the silk, or at least this is the case with that brood which works 

 in the ear. > As soon as the egg hatches, which takes only a few 

 days, the young worm feeds upon the silk working its way down in- 

 side of the husks. If the husks project considerably above the ear 

 the worm will be a third or more grown before it reaches the ear, 

 but if the ear comes out nearly or quite to the ends of the husks 

 young worms may be found feeding upon the soft kernels. During 

 ordinary seasons, when the worms are not very numerous, seldom 

 more than one worm will be found in an ear, but at other times 

 there may be half a dozen. From this we might suppose that the 



