252 TOBACCO LEAF. 



is this work regarded by the successful tobacco planter, 

 that he will neglect every other duty on the farm and 

 pay three or four times the ordinary prices for farm 

 hands in order to fight this pest, for the profits of to- 

 bacco culture will be, other things being equal, pro- 

 portioned to the ability to destroy this inveterate and 

 insatiable enemy. 



The fruitful mother of the devouring and destruc- 

 tive tobacco worm is a lepidopterous insect of the hawk 

 moth or Sphingidce family, also called the Sphinx moth. 

 It derives the name Sphinx from the attitude which the 

 caterpillar assumes in raising the fore part of the body, 

 and remaining in this state of immobility for hours 

 together. In this the lively imagination of Linnaeus 

 perceived a resemblance to the sphinx of the Egyptians. 

 There are two species of these moths the tobacco worm 

 of the North Phlegethontius celeus, shown in Fig. C8, 

 and the tobacco worm of the South Phlegethontius 

 Carolina, Fig. 69. Both species may occur in the Mid- 

 dle South, and for the purpose of the practical planter 

 may be considered as one, though entomologists have 

 had a dispute over their proper names, the one above 

 adopted having by far the weight of evidence and 

 authority in its favor. 



The worm enters immediately upon its work of 

 destruction, making a small hole in the leaf, and grad- 

 ually enlarging this, confining itself to the under sur- 

 face of the leaf if the weather is clear. About the 

 seventh day it passes through another change, doffing 

 its old skin and putting on the habiliments of maturity. 

 While this change is going on, the caterpillar loses its 

 appetite, but in a day or two it recovers and becomes 

 endowed with greater vigor, activity and voraciousness, 

 passing readily from leaf to leaf, or from plant to plant, 

 growing in size and its capacity for eating, until it will 

 consume half a large leaf within twenty-four hours. As 



