﻿24 ' EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT 



bands or armies, all the individuals attached to each other, heads to 

 tails, and the whole mass movinji; with one impulse, as a unit.* 



The species we are now considering is, however, the only one in 

 America which has a just claim to the title, not only because it was 

 first thus christened, but because it so well deserves the name. Known 

 to the scientific world as Leucania unipuncta, and often called the 

 Northern Army Worm, to distinguish it from the other species that 

 have usurped its title, this insect has a very extended range and pos- 

 sesses immense power for harm on account of the importance of the 

 crops it devastates. 



PAST HISTORY OF THE TRUE ARMY WORM. 



" If we trace back the history of the Army Worm in this country, 

 we find that inaccuracy and confusion characterize most of the rec- 

 ords concerning it previous to the year 1861. In that year, however, 

 by the contemporaneous observations and experiments of several 

 entomologists, in different sections of the United States, its natural 



* These bands of small worms are of not uufrequent occurrence in Missouri, and I give herewith 

 accounts of them from three dillerent correspondents. In two of the instances the specimens have been 

 sent to me and proved to be identical. The species averages o'a mm. in lengtli by 0.5 mm. in width, or 

 about a quarter of an incli long and one-tenth as wide. It is a idain, pale-yellow, soft, viscid, semi- 

 transparent, legless worm with a free and brown head, and a slight swelling around the anterior border 

 of the abdominal joints ; tlie body being cylindrical and tapering but very slightly towar I head. Nor- 

 mally these worms live huddled together under the decaying bark of trees, which they leave in adhering 

 bands, wliea they are full grown and about to enter the ground to translorm. When thus marching 

 in trains they are usually pursued by numerous enemies, and especially by rove-beetles (Staphilinida) 

 and ants. They have been reported from various parts of this country. 



From my pear-trees runs a jiath to my stable. In said iiath, early this moi-ning, we rioticed what 

 we first thought a snake just shi-d. On closer examination it proved "to be a rope-like (about two feet 

 long and ?4 of an inch thick) m >ving mass of minute worms such as we send you in the center of the 

 enclosed tin box. Could have sent more than a pint. Afterwards in our truit-garden we noticed apple 

 trees much blighted ; then some of our pear trees died of the same disease. We examined with a knife 

 some of the shoots and found the track and in the track castings of what we thought just such fellows as 

 those massed and nifirching away from our pear trees. We hastened to the moving rope: it had disap- 

 peared, and we could find no traces of the worms, except where they had been trodden into the mud. 

 As we said, this moving column was leaving our pear trees (about liVty) that are dead and dying with 

 blight. In the pear-liinbs that we cut olf between the outer bark and the wood, we lOund the track or 

 burrow, castings, etc, and occasionally a worm of the (^oll>r and size of these migrating bands. We 

 send you with the Avorms some of the piar Jimbs from trees that were dying with bllLrht. We never 

 noticed this worm until last season, as above staled, and we had no blight until that time. 



Will yoii ])lcase investi,gate the pear blight anil tell us if there is any coimectioii between it and 

 these wonns '' 



Jos. Smith. 



Stewardsville, Mo., June 10, 1S70. 



Of course, as I wrote to Mr. Smith at the time, there is uo connection between the worms and the 

 blight, other than that as soon as a tree is blighted, it furnishes under the decaying bark desirable food 

 for them — thty bemg rather the ellVct than the cause 



In .July 187'2, jNIr. I>ouis S. Noce sent me specimens identical with those sent by Mr. Smith, with 

 the statement that at Bismarck, Mo., they wei'e travelling together in a roll the,si/.e of an ordinary 

 snake. 



The third communication about Ihefe snake' worms in Missouri was made to me last summer by Mr. 

 G. A. Be/oni, of Napoleon, Lafayette Co., under the impression that they might be the genuine Army 

 Worm with which he was not familiar. The species was larger and evidently distinct from the others. 

 He thus describes their appearance: 



There were discovered here last summer two rolls of worms, one about six feet long and the other 

 about four leet long They were as large as a large snake, anil were traveling from the last . I hey were 

 so comiiact and so shaped that they were mistaken for isnakes. We got t-tlcks and stones to kill them 

 with, as they were crossing the road, but on striking we Ibiiiid that they were woiins, of a gny color 

 and about three- fourths of an inch long. 



