89 



habit of the moth is to deposit a single egg in a place and that the 

 worms, when more than one in an ear, are the projeny of different 

 moths. The fact that the half dozen or so worms that may be 

 found in a single ear are of different sizes in a measure substan- 

 tiates this assumption. As soon as they reach the ears they feed 

 upon the kernels beneath the hiisks. Sometimes they eat only the 

 outside portion of the kernels, at others they bore through the 

 under side next to the cob, so that when the husks are stripped 

 back the worms may be nearly half hidden in the corn. As the 

 corn gets hard they generally stop work in it, though there is good 

 evidence that they will sometimes eat the corn after it is ripe and 

 hard. Mr. Claypole's letter, quoted above, shows that they may 

 leave an ear after it becomes too hard for them and go to one that 

 is softer. I have on the other hand found them dead and decaying 

 in their burrows, though the cause of their death may have been 

 from biting of other worms instead of a lack of suitable food. 



The first or early brood of the worms are, according to different 

 writers, to be found in the tassel of the corn just as it is coming 

 out. Mrs. Mary Treat, of Vineland, N. J., has shown that this is 

 the case there, while Professor Comstock asserts that "the so-called 

 'Bud-worms' of the Southern corn crop are nothing but this same 

 early brood of Heliothis, having almost precisely similar habits to 

 those observed in New Jersey by Mrs. Treat." 



There are three broods of the worms in the Southern States, ac- 

 cording to Mr. Glover and other writers. In Southern Illinois and 

 other places of that latitude there are usually only two broods, 

 though the difference of hatching of the spring moths make these 

 broods quite irregular. In fact it is probable that there may be 

 three broods of the projeny of the first hatched moths when we have 

 an early spring and a late fall. 



AS A TOMATO WORM. 



As far as I can learn. Professor Eiley was the first to ascertain 

 the fact that the Corn-worm, or Boll-worm, is the same worm as 

 the Tomato-worm. In the Am. Entomologist, Vol. 1, p. 21*2, we 

 find the following from his pen : 



"But this glutton is not even satisfied with ravaging these two 

 great staples of the country — cotton and corn — but voraciously attacks 

 the tomato in Southern Illinois, eating into the green fruit and 

 thereby causing such fruit to rot. In this manner it often causes 

 serious loss to the tomato-grower, and it may justly be considered 

 the worst enemy to the tomato in that section of the country." 



That such damage to the tomato is not confined to Southern 

 Illinois, or to this country, may be seen from the following extract 

 from Vol. 2 of the Am. Entomologist, p. 172: 



"We learn from a recent number of 'Scientific Opinion,' that at 

 a late meeting of the London Entomological Society, Mr. Jenner 

 Weir exhibited specimens of our Cotton Boll-worm moth {Heliothis 

 armigera, Hub.), which were bred from larvae which fed on the fruit 

 of the tomato. As we have already shown, this same species 



