LIFE HISTORY AND HABITS. 



The egg of the annv worm is spherical, smooth, white, and 

 opaque when tirst hiid, becoming faintly iridescent and more 

 sordid before hatching. Its average diameter is 0.0 mm. The 

 eggs are usually placed at the base of the leaves or thrust in 

 behind the leaf sheath, but may often be deposited amongst 

 trash or debris as well. The eggs are glued on to the objects, 

 wherever they are deposited, and are commonly in rows of 15 

 to 20 ; but sometimes they are as few as 2 or 3, and again as 

 many as nearly a hundred may l)e in one batch. The moths 

 deposit their eggs in the early part of the night, even before 

 dark sometimes. One female may deposit several hundred eggs 

 (500-700) and may occu])y two or more evenings so doing. 



The eggs hatch in a week or ten days, depending on the tem- 

 perature. The young caterpillars first crawl by a looping mo- 

 tion on account of the fact that the first and the second pairs of 

 abdominal prolegs are rudimentary. After the first molt only 

 the first pair are rudimentary, and after the second uiolt all 

 l)rolegs are functional and the cater])illar crawls in the normal 

 manner. There are five molts at intervals of three to six days, 

 and the growing period is thus about three to four weeks, de- 

 pending on the temperature. The caterpillars usually feed on 

 the plants at night-time and hide during the day beneath leaves 

 or trash on the surface of the ground, or in the soil a little 

 below tlie surface, or sometimes even remaiu on the ])hint and 

 feed more or less or hide in a fold of leaf or behind a leaf 

 sheath or other convenient place. Those f(>eding on the leaves 

 in the daytime drop to the ground on the slightest disturbance 

 and coil up, remaining motionless for a time. The feeding of 

 the army worm is not like some of the cutworms in that it feeds 

 on the leaves instead of eating the stem of a plant and thus 

 cutting it off at (»r near. the surface of the ground. The evi- 

 dences of their feeding on sugar cane are easily detected; the 

 lower leaves of the young cane-shoots being notched and ragged 

 where they have eaten the blade of the leaf, and wheu numer- 

 ous, in fact the blades of the leaves entirely eaten away, leav- 

 ing nothing but the hard midribs. 



