﻿OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 53 



during May, in the latitude of St. Louis, and the bulk of their larvae 

 are full-grown about the time wheat is in the milk. These produce 

 moths again during the latter part of July, and, in their turn, these 

 lay eggs which produce a second brood of worms in August. These 

 become chrysalides toward or during September, and hibernate as 

 such in the ground. 



The habits of the worm, when full grown, are well set forth in 

 what has been already said, and the peculiarity of feeding upon heads 

 of the small grains is quite marked. It prefers the grain itself to all 

 other parts of the plant, and generally leaves the glumes, or gnaws 

 and lets them drop so as to cover the ground with chaff. 



The horny outer parts of the ovipositor of the female have very 

 much the same form, appearance and structure as in the true Army 

 Worm (Rep. 8, Fig. 19), the compressed blade being somewhat less 

 robust and less produced and rounded at the upper end. The eggs 

 are also secreted as in that species, and as one might naturally expect 

 from the unity of habit that generally prevails in the same genus. 

 These eggs are, in fact, thrust, in single, double or treble rows of five 

 to fifty or more in a row, between the sheath and stalk of the grains 

 upon which the worms are destined to feed. They are generally 

 fastened, but very slightly, to the inside of the sheath, and are readily 

 seen upon pulling this aside (Fig. 14, I). They are thrust in sidewise, 

 compactly pressed together, and not covered with any glistening or 

 adhesive fluid as in unipxincta. Each egg, when examined closely, is 

 found to be very soft and yielding, so that its form is fashioned some- 

 what by the pressure it receives from its neighbors and from the leaf. 

 Normally, the form is of a compressed sphere, the depth from top to base 

 being about half the transverse diameter. The shell is corrugate 

 rather than granulate, the corrugations assuming upwards of thirty 

 more or less distinct ribs. Pale yellowish and translucent when first 

 laid, it becomes slate-colored before hatching, and the shell is so ex- 

 tremely delicate that every hair of the embryon may be seen through 

 it, and it collapses and is scarcely visible after the young worm has 

 hatched. In its rougher and ribbed surface, compressed form and 

 other characteristics, it differs sufficiently from the egg of unipuncta 

 to show that egg structure alone cannot be relied on as of much value 

 in generic diagnoses. The eggs hatch, in Summer temperature, in from 

 three to five days from date of deposition. 



The newly hatched larva, as in unipuncta^ is quite a looper, the 

 prolegs on joints six and seven being still more atrophied, and those 

 on joint eight being short. The body is pale at first, with a black 

 head and shiny spot on top of first and last joints. It soon becomes 



