ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND FACTS FOR THE PEOPLE. 375 



COTTOHT ARMY WORM.»The caterpil- 

 lar, or cotton army worm, appear in count- 

 less myriads, destroying millions of dollars' 

 worth of cotton, and in many instances 

 totally ruining the planters who relied 

 upon cotton alone as their main crop. It 

 is also to be feared, if effectual means are 

 not soon devised for their extermination, 

 that the planting of cotton must be aban- 

 doned, for a time at least, in the most 

 Southern States, where these insects par- 

 ticularly abound, and most probably orig- 

 inate. In the more northern cotton 

 States the cotton army worm is only an 

 occasional visitor, becoming rare as it ap- 

 proaches the north. In the extreme 

 south they appear every season in greater 

 or less numbers. As heavy frosts kill 

 caterpillar, chrysalis, and perfect moth, its 

 periodical appearance in certain districts 

 is most probably owing to climatic influ- 

 ences, the insect being exterminated for 

 the time whenever there has been cold 

 weather, and not appearing in that neigh- 

 borhood again until replaced by fresh mi- 

 grations of moths from more southern lo- 

 calities, where the frost had not reached. 

 An old cotton planter in South Carolina 

 states that the moth made its appearance 

 periodically every twenty-one years in his 

 district, having been very destructive in 

 the years 1804, 1825 and 1846. "More- 

 over, it had actually been foretold that in 

 the year 1867 the caterpillars might be 

 expected to destroy the crops." 



As false alarms about the appearance 

 of the cotton worm in certain districts are 

 frequently inserted in the southern news- 

 papers by persons interested in the sale of 

 cotton when the worms seen in the field 

 are merely boll worms, grass worms, or 

 some other comparatively harmless cater- 

 pillar, we will mention some distinguish- 

 ing marks by which the cotton moth may 

 be recognized in either the egg, caterpil- 

 lar, chrysalis, or perfect state. In the first 

 place, the egg of the cotton worm is 

 round and very much flattened in form, 

 and of a green color, whereas the egg of 

 the boll worm moth is round, somewhat 

 bluntish, conical in shape, and of a yel- 

 low color. The egg of the cotton worm 

 is mostly deposited on the leaf or branch- 

 es, while the egg of the boll worm is usu- 

 ally placed in the so-called "ruffle" or en- 

 velope of the flower. 



The catterpillarof the cotton worm has 



six pectoral or front feet, two anal, and 

 eight ventral, the two foremost of the 

 ventral feet being very 

 small, apparently use- 

 less, and not employed 

 for grasping, like the 

 other six ; while in the 

 grass worm the legs are 

 perfectly formed and all 

 used when creeping 

 from leaf to leaf. Ow- 

 ing to this imperfection 

 in the formation in the 

 first pair of ventral teet, 

 the cotton caterpillar 

 always moves like the 

 span worm or looper, 

 Fig. 19. that is, by alternately 



contracting and expanding its body, hold- 

 ing fast by means of its hind feet to the 

 object on which it rests, while the head 

 and fore feet are extended as far as possi- 

 ble, the stalk or leaf being securely grasp- 

 ed by the pectoral feet, the hinder part 

 and legs are suddenly brought up to them, 

 so that at every step the body assumes 

 the shape of an arch ; whereas the grass 

 worm glides along by moving its feet al- 

 ternately and gradually without raising 

 the middle of its body from the leaf. The 

 cotton worm has also a habit of doubling 

 itself up suddenly when disturbed, and 

 springing to a distance, but the grass, 

 worm merely rolls itself up somewhat 

 like a snake when coiled. The cotton 

 worm, when about to change, spins a very 

 loose web or cocoon among, or in the 

 leaves or branches of the cotton plant or 

 weeds infesting the field, at some distance 

 from the ground. The grass worm, on 

 the contrary, comes down from the plant 

 it has fed on and retires under stones, 

 loose earth, or buries itself in the ground 

 before forming its cocoon. The perfect 

 moth of the real cotton worm is much 

 more angular and graceful in form, with 

 the upper wings of a somewhat reddish 

 or claret colored brown, and there is al- 

 ways a darker spot having a light centre, 

 more or less defined in the middle of 

 these wings, while the under wings are of 

 a dark ash color. The grass worm moth 

 is much more clumsy in form, its upper 

 wings being clouded and barred with 

 dark and light grayish brown, while the 

 under wings are lighter colored. 



Whether the cotton caterpillar feeds 



