112 



THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



endless niisconceptiDn aud coufusion. It is much 

 as if liogS; dogs aud cows were all iu a certain lo- 

 cality to be called "cows," and the habits of the 

 three kinds of animals were, in consequence of the 

 misnomer, to be jumbled up promiscuously together. 

 Mistaking one for another, farmers would then at- 

 tempt to make butter aud cheese out of sow's milk 

 — they would take dogs' flesh to market and at- 

 tempt to sell it for beef — and the true veritable 

 cows they would perhaps expect to keep watch over 

 their houses by uight. 



The first of these three caterpillars is the destruc- 

 tive Cotton caterpillar or "Army-worm" of the South, 

 which feeds, so far as is known, exclusively upon 

 the leaves of the Cotton plant, generates two or 

 three distinct bi'oods every year, and makes its co- 

 coon above ground by drawing together the leaves 

 of the plant upon which it feeds. This larva 

 changes the same season to a reddish-gray moth 

 {Aiiomis .rj/h'na) belonging to the great group of 

 the Owlet Moths (^Noctua family.) It must be 

 carefully distinguished from another species belong- 

 ing to the same family, the Boll-worm Moth of the 

 South {Relinthis armigerti), which burrows indis- 

 criminately either in the Boll of the Cotton plant 

 or in the ears of Indian Corn, and is found in the 

 more southerly of the Northern States as well as in 

 the South, On the other hand, the Cotton cater- 

 pillar has never been met with, except where cot- 

 ton is grown — i. e. in the more southerly of the 

 Southern States. 



The second species, which is that which is cor- 

 rectly termed Army-worm, feeds upon the grasses, 

 the cereal plants, and a few other herbaceous plants, 

 but never under any circumstances has been known 

 to attack trees or shrubs of any kind, and occurs 

 from the extreme southern point of Illinois, in the 

 latitude of Petersburg, Va., to the northern parts 

 of Maine. Of this insect {Lcucania ■uniptinctii^ 

 there is but one brood produced in one year, the 

 larva going underground to pass into the pupa 

 state, and the moth usually appearing a few weeks 

 afterwards, though a few lie under ground all 

 through the winter, and do not transform into the 

 moth state until the following spring. The larvre 

 have the remarkable habit of migrating, in vast ar- 

 mies or crowds, from one field to another; and in 

 such cases they are often successfully fenced out by 

 digging long ditches across their path, up the per- 

 pendicular sides of which they are unable to climb. 

 From this habit of theirs evidently arose the 

 very appropriate and significant name of "Army- 

 worm." Like the preceding, this species belongs 

 to the great group of the Owlet-moths ; and it fur- 

 ther resembles that insect in appearing, in vast 

 numbers, only in particular years and particular 

 seasons, though a few may be met with every year 

 by the careful collector. 



A third species which has been locally known as 

 the "Army-worm" for many years back, in the 

 north-west corner of the State of New York, I have 

 recently ascertained to be the Tent-caterpillar of 

 the Forest ( C/i'sio<((m^)a .s^/tio/iVa, figured Harris 

 Inj. Ins., Plate 8, fig. 19) — a species which, both 



in the larva and in the perfect moth state, very 

 closely resembles the common Tent-caterpillar of 

 the Apple-tree (^Clisiocampa americana, ibid. fig. 

 18.) It may, however, by readily distinguished in 

 the larva state from the latter, by having along its 

 back arowof eleven irregularly shaped, white blotch- 

 es instead of a continuous white stripe. Its eggs, 

 like those of the latter, are laid in a cylindrical ring 

 round a twig, but they may be distinguished by the 

 cylinder being almost squarely docked at each end, 

 instead of sloping off considerably at each end so as 

 to present an oval appearance ; and also by their 

 much less densely plastered over with brown ce- 

 ment by the mother moth. I am indebted to Mr. 

 Peter Ferris, of Orleans County, North Western 

 N. Y., for specimens of this insect, both in the egg, 

 larva and pupa state ; and as authors hitherto seem 

 to have given a somewhat incorrect account of the 

 habits of the larva, I shall now copy what he says 

 on the subject. Both Harris aud Fitch, it may be 

 observed, assert that this larva lives iu large com- 

 munities under a common web or tent, which is 

 made against the trunk or beneath the principal 

 branches. The young larvre, which I myself hatch- 

 ed out from the egg, did indeed spin a common 

 web ; but they lived on it and not under it. Ac- 

 cording to Mr. Ferris, after the larvae have attained 

 .some considerable size, they spin no webs at all. 

 In a somewhat similar manner, the common Tent- 

 caterpillar lives in society under a common web till 

 it is about | grown, and then deserts it, each shift- 

 ing for itself as it best may. 



These worms make their appearance on Apple-trees at 

 or about the same time or soon after the common Tent- 

 caterpillar of the Apple-tree. When they begin to grow, 

 they soon spread over the tree, feeding on the leaves as 

 they come to them, instead of being confined to one 

 branch until all of its leaves are consumed. When the 

 weather begins to get warm, they may be seen gathered 

 in the sunshine, in bunches or patches on the upper side 

 of some of the higher limbs, but without spinning any 

 web. In hot days in June, when the worms are getting 

 large, they often gather in large bunches on the lower 

 limbs near the trunk, and on the trunk of the tree, out of 

 the sun, still spinning no web. These bunches are from 

 a few inches to two or three feet long and often many 

 inches in width. On large trees that have been neglect- 

 ed there are often found as many as eight such bunches, 

 of different sizes; making undoubtedly in some of the 

 worst cases several quarts of worms. After they are 

 about half-grown, they become very voracious, often 

 stripping a large tree, that had previously appeared but 

 little injured, in a few days. They are great travelers, 

 not only in going all over the top of a tree, and from one 

 tree to another ; but when one orchard is used up, they 

 will go to another. On such occasions they seem to pre- 

 fer a smooth track like a hard road, or a board fence with 

 a cap-board on top of it, along which they travel with 

 great rapidity. They are much the worst where several 

 orchards lie close together. Within a circle of not much 

 more than half a mile from where I am now writing, 

 there are 12 orchards. The damage done in these or- 

 chards in 1866 cannot be less than one thousand dollars; 

 and counting the Labor expended in killing worms, in 

 those that were taken care of, must be much more. On 

 all trees and parts of trees stripped of their leaves, there 

 will not only be no fruit in the following year, but the 

 trees themselves arc always more or less injured, the nu- 

 merous dead limbs indicating that they cannot stand 

 such treatment many years longer. Isolated orchards 

 are much less liable to be troubled with this pest. 



These worms have been more or less troublesome in 

 Western New York for twelve years or more. They have 

 a peculiarity sometimes observed in other insects, name- 



