18 REPORT UPON COTTON INSECTS. 



from Santo Domingo. " Charlevoix, on his visit to Natchez, in 1722, saw 

 the cotton plant growing in the garden of Sieur Le Noir, the company's 

 clerk." 



"Bienville states in one of his dispatches, dated in April, 1735, that 

 the cultivation of cotton proved advantageous." " Governor Yaudreuil, 

 in a dispatch dated 1746, mentions cotton as among the articles received 

 by the boats which came down annually from Illinois to New Orleans."* 



Cotton having been cultivated as early as this, it seems strange that we 

 never hear of an appearance of the cotton-worm before 1804 in that sec- 

 tion of the country. Yet that is absolutely the first reliable date that 

 we have been able to find, and it certainly would seem to argue a recent 

 introduction of the worm. 



The insufficiency and unreliability of the records may be urged against 

 such argument as this, and with some degree of justice ; still it would 

 seem as if so formidable an enemy to the plant would be mentioned 

 whenever the culture of cotton was spoken of. 



As to the absolute identity of the insect which ravaged the cotton 

 fields of Guiana and the West Indies in the latter part of the eighteenth 

 century with our North American cotton-worm, there can be little 

 doubt. The only point making it at all uncertain is Fabricius' descrip- 

 tion of a cotton-moth (Noctua gossypii) from South America; the habits 

 of which are similar to those of Aletia, and yet which is a different 

 insect entirely, according to the description.t Yet, all things consid- 

 ered, we may safely conclude that Fabricius' insect, although alike in 

 habits, is not the important southern "Chenille." 



In a queer old article published in Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclope- 

 dia, Dr. Chisolm, of Clifton, who had studied the chenille in Guiana in 

 1801 and 1802, gives the following description of the insect in all its 

 stages : 



Phalaena geomotra seticomis alia omnibus sub-griseia sub-angulatis deflexis. 



Larva subpiloaa aetulis nigris interpositis : 12 poda, 20-annulatu, clorso uigro nitido, 

 linea dorsali, liueolis gcminis lateralibus flaveaceutbus albis; abdomine alba flave- 

 scente. 



Pupa obtecta, subovalia, fuaca nigricens, coriacea. 



Habitat in Guiana, Gossypii variis, forsan omnibus speciebus, quarum folia, petioles 

 fructusque etiam immeturos mira diraqne voracitate, devorat. 



'Wailcs A;ric. (if.,], of Mis.s., l*->4, i>7741. 



t Fabricius' description is aa follows: 



No. 286. Noctua gowypii. 



Cristata alis deflexis fusco cinereoque variis: posticis hyalinis immaculatis. 



Habitat in America meridionalis Parthenis hysterofero, gossypis polyphagci folia 

 caulesque deatruent, Dr. Pflug. Devoratur a meleagride Gallapavone, Dr. V. Rohr. 

 Praecedenti (which is Noctua hwtrionica from East Indies) nimis affiuis. Antennas 

 fiiscn-. Thorax lobo antico distincto, postice criatatua, cinereo fuscoque variegatus. 

 Abdomen cineream. AL.- antk-M- mox magia fuac;n, mox rnagis cinerae macula coatati, 

 oblonga, fusca versus apicem. Costa albo punctata. Posticae albo hyaliurc immacu- 

 late. Tibiae fnacre. Larva gregaria, glabra, fnaco grisescens; vitta dorsali, lata, 

 fuaca, qure linea flava, macnlis albis intersecta, includitur. (The next species is N. 

 Brassicaria from South America, stated to be "nimis praecedentibus affinis.") J- C. 

 Fabricius, Entomologica Syatematica, vol. iii, part 2 ; Hafuiae 1794, pp. 9&-97. 



