﻿182 EIGHTH ANNUAL REPORT 



brown, and the stiff, piliferous hairs are scarcely longer than the other minute ones on> 

 the general surface. The larva has now all the characteristics of the last stage, except 

 in lacking the white powder, and in being of a pale olive-brown color. The cervical 

 and anal shields are still highly polished and black, and the skin, instead of looking- 

 faintly pubescent, as in the previous stae;e, is translucent and glossy. 



Where several larvre hatch out on the same plant (which not un- 

 frequently happens,) there is a struggle as to which shall usurp the 

 privilege of entering the stem, and the first one to do so generally 

 keeps the others out on the leaves, so that in the end they doubtless 

 perish. The parent is by no means particular as to where she fastens 

 her eggs, for Dr. Mellichamp has sent me dry leaves of Querous fal- 

 cata that had accumulated around his Yuccas, and that have eggs 

 fastened to them. 



Regarding the boring habit in butterflies I learn from Prof, T. C. 

 Zeller, of Stettin, Prussia, that there is also a Hesperian {Er.ynnis 

 alcece^ Esp. ; malvarum^ Hoffm.) which Kirby gives as common to 

 Europe, Asia and Africa, whose larva bores in Autumn into the stems 

 of its food-plant, {Malva sylvestris) in which it hibernates, and in 

 which it goes through its transformations the following Spring. 



THE ARMY WORM. 



ADDITIONAL NOTES ON THE MODE, PLACE AND TIME OP OVIPOSITION.. 



COMPLETION OF THE INSECT'S NATURAL HISTORY. 



It gives me pleasure to announce ere closing this Report that, 

 since the article on the Army Worm was written and printed, I have 

 been able to settle by direct observation the questions therein dis- 

 cussed as to the time, place and manner of oviposition. By persist- 

 ently searching during the early part of April for the moth, I was 

 rewarded by taking a number of specimens at sugar and others at 

 large and while engaged in the act of laying. All the latter speci- 

 mens have been found in an undisturbed blue grass plot behind the 

 St. Louis fair grounds. As they are not easily disturbed while in the 

 act of oviposition, it is only occasionally that one will fly up from the 

 disturbance of walking over the grass. They fly low and soon bury 

 themselves in the grass. By carefully watching I have ascertained 

 that the favorite place to which the female consigns her eggs in such 

 grass is along the inner base of the terminal blades where they are- 



