REPORT OF THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 347 



•worm is by the use of lights and poisoned sweets for attracting the 

 moths. Several correspondents even go so far as to say that the rav- 

 ages of the worms can always bo checked by attracting the moths with 

 lights. Colonel Sorsby always ha^l great success in.killing these moths 

 with molasses and vinegar. He says : * 



We procured eigliteen common-sized dinner-plates, into each of wliicli we put half 

 a gill of vinegar aud molasses, previously prepared in the proportion of four parts of 

 the former to one of the latter. These plates were set on small stakes or poles driven 

 into the ground in the cotton-field, one to about each three acres, and reaching a little 

 ahove the cotton-plant, with a six-inch square board tacked on top to receive the 

 plate. These arrangements were made in the evening, soon after the flies had made 

 their appearance; the nest morning we found eighteen to thirty-five moths to each 

 plate. The experiment was continued for five or six days, distributing the plates over 

 the entire field, each days' success increasing, until the numbers were reduced to two 

 or three moths to each jdate, when it was abandoned as being no longer worthy of the 

 trouble. The crop that year was but very little injured by the boll-worm. The flies 

 were caught in their eagerness to feed upon the mixture by alighting into it and being 

 unable to escape. They were probably attracted by the odor of the preparation, the 

 vinegar probably being an important agent in the matter. As the flies feed only at 

 night, the plates should be visited late every evening, the insects taken out, and the 

 vessels replenished as circumstances may require. I have tried the experiment with- 

 results equally satisfactory, and shall continue it until a better one is adopted. 



The boll-worm moths appear to be attracted to the same sweets as the 

 cotton-moths, and arc equally attracted to light. It follows, then, that 

 the remarks made in the earlier part of this report will apply equally 

 well here, and tbat the devices there recommended for the destruction 

 of the cotton-moth may be here recommended for the destruction of the 

 boll-worm moth. 



"Department of Agriculture Report, 1855, p. 235. 



