﻿OP THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 49 



Apamidce,is totally unlike our Leucania, being smaller, and of a mouse- 

 gray color, with the hind wings glistening-white. Though so variable 

 that scarcely any two are alike, they may yet be separated into 

 three distinct sets or varieties. The first which may be considered 

 typical is shown at Figure 27 a, the second which I have called 

 fulvosa at 5, and the third which I have called ohscura at c. The 

 eggs are deposited in small clusters, often two or three layers one 

 above the other, and covered with downy hair from the parent's abdo- 

 men. Each egg has the form of a slightly compressed spheroid, faintly 

 ribbed, and is dull yellow in color. As already stated (p 35) they 

 are often laid on the leaves of trees on which the larva does not feed. 



PLANTS PREFERRED BY THE ARMY WORM. 



Though when hard pushed the worms will fall upon and devour 

 each other, and — if the Peshtigo reports in 1872 are reliable — will 

 take even onions, and other vegetables, and, according to B. F. Wiley, 

 of Makanda, Ills., who is reliable authority, the leaves of fruit trees ;* 

 yet their attacks are mostly confined to grasses and cereals, and it is 

 extremely doubtful whether they could live for any length of time 

 on other plants. Their more natural food-plants are the coarse swamp 

 grasses. Of cultivated crops they do most injury to timothy and blue 

 grass meadows and winter wheat. Though they nibble at clover, they 

 evidently are not fond of it and generally pass it by. Rye is also not as 

 palatable to them as some of the other grasses. f They often cut off 

 the ears of wheat and oats and allow them to fall to the ground, and 

 they are perhaps led to perform this wanton trick, by the succulency 

 of the stem immediately below the ear. South of latitude 40° they 

 generally appear before the wheat stalks get too hard, or early enough 

 to materially injure the crop ; but north of that line, wheat is gener- 

 ally too much ripened for their tastes, and is sometimes even harvested 

 before the full grown worms make their advent. 



The worm sometimes passes through a wheat field when the wheat 

 is nearly ripe, and does good service by devouring all the chess and 

 leaving untouched the wheat ; and the following items would indicate 

 that even a foe to the farmer as determined as this, may sometimes 

 prove to be his friend. 



Harvest and Crops. — Notwithstanding the unfavorable weather, many farmers 

 have couimenctd the wheat harvest. The yield in this immediate vicinity will be 

 superabundant. Some fields were struck with rust a tew days since, but the Army 

 Worm making its appearance simultaneously, stripped the straw entirely bare of blades 

 and saved the berry Irom injury. These disgusting pests have saved thousands of dol- 

 lars to farmers in this neignborhood. A few fields of corn and grass have been par- 

 tially destroyed, but by ditching around fields, the worm's ravages liave been confined 



* Prairie Farmer, July 18, 1861. 



tJno. Monteith, the present Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, had two acres of timothy, 

 sown in 1874 with rye . The worms last year cleaned out the timothy^ but did not materially affect the rye. 

 E R— 23. 



