MISCELLANEOUS GARDEN INSECTS 



407 



Illinois. The larvae feed normally on the pigweed or careless 

 weed (Amaranthus spp.) from which they sometimes receive the 

 local name of " careless worm/' and only when they become 

 overabundant on these weeds do they usually increase sufficiently 

 to migrate from them and attack crops. 



The moth is a yellowish, buff or grayish-brown color, marked 

 as shown in Fig. 294, and with a wing expanse of about three- 

 quarters of an inch. The larva also varies in color from pale and 

 greenish-yellow to dark yellow, and is marked with numerous 

 black tubercles as shown in Fig. 294, b, c. 



Life History. The hibernating habits are not known, but from 

 analogy with the beet webworm, and the appearance of the 





FIG. 294. The garden webworm (Loxostege similalis Gn.): a, male moth; 

 b, c, larvae; d, anal segment of same; e, abdominal segment of same from 

 side; /, pupa; g, tip of abdomen of same; a, b, c, f, somewhat enlarged; 

 d, e, g, more enlarged. (After Riley and Chittenden, U. S. Dept. Agr.) 



moths, it seems probable that the winter is passed by the larvse 

 or pupae in the soil. The moths appear in Texas by mid- April 

 and in Central Illinois in late May and early June. The yellowish 

 eggs are laid on the foliage in small patches of from 8 to 20 and 

 in Texas hatch in three or four days. The larvae of the first 

 generations feed on weeds or alfalfa, where it is grown, and then 

 migrate to corn and cotton or garden truck, the former crops 

 being attacked when six or eight inches high. In feeding the 

 caterpillars spin a fine web, which gradually envelops the plant, 

 of which nothing is left but the skeletons of the leaves when the 

 larvse are abundant. The larvae become full grown in about 

 three weeks in summer, when they descend to the soil and pupate 



