THE COTTON WORM IN GUIANA. 73 



occur without any appearance of the chenille ; and, notwithstanding this, the year 

 immediately following may be marked by the most extensive proofs of its voracity. 

 * * * A curious observation relative to the history of the cotton-moth and cater- 

 pillar is the rapidity with which it carries its ravages to distinct and even distant 

 fields of the plantation. We should be inclined to imagine that the wind has much 

 agency in spreading its destructive progeny ; for in the course of a single night whole 

 fields, consisting of from four to ten acres, hitherto unmolested, have been devoured by 

 them. Or does this proceed from the flight of myriads of the insect in its perfect 

 state to distant fields and then depositing their eggs, whose fecundation is quick- 

 ened by the fostering heat of a favorable season, and thus giving rise to those sudden 

 and astounding colonizations. That the leaves of cotton are the nidi as well as the 

 food of the chenille is evident from the operations of the caterpillar when preparing 

 for its change to the pupa state. By means of a thready substance, resembling a 

 spider's web, of a white color, the leaf which the larva intended for the scene of its 

 transformations is drawn together so as to form a funnel-shaped fold, close at the 

 edges, and shut up at the broadest part or base. The pupa is inclosed in a covering 

 of the thready substance, and acquires its perfect form or image at the expiration of 

 nine days. * * * 



Immediately after dusk, in those seasons which are unfavorable to their propaga- 

 tion, myriads approach the candles and are very troublesome, but soon terminate their 

 existence in its flame. The period of their existence, when not destroyed by such 

 causes, is about nine days ; and the whole life of the insect, including all its trans- 

 formations from the ovum to the death of the moth, is about twenty-seven days. In 

 the pupa state this insect is subjected to the rapacity of several other insects. Those 

 I have more particularly observed are a small species of apterous bug, I believe the 

 Cimex grylloides, and the common red ant. These are often found in the hollow folded 

 leaf, having the means of disengaging themselves from it by a cylindrical passage 

 penetrating to the helpless pupa, of which, when these insects infest it, nothing remains 

 but the shell or coriaceous coat. * * * The evolutions of the larvae and the transforma- 

 tions and the death of the insect, or the appearance and disappearance of the chenille, are 

 certainly regulated by particular states of the atmosphere and by the phases or changes 

 of the moon. The chenille or larva of the cotton-moth generally appeal's in years 

 favoring the fecundation of its ova, in July or August, a few days before the new moon ; 

 increases during the increase of the moon, and nearly about the full moon begins to 

 disappear, and soon after ceases altogether. Happily for the planter, however, this 

 happens only every second or third year. But in years uncommonly favorable, the 

 chenille appears and disappears every month from July to October, and afterwards from 

 the middle of January to the beginning of March. * * * 



Although the planters anathematize this destructive insect with all the virulence of 

 Eruulphus, it does not seem that anything effectual has been attempted to prevent or 

 destroy the evil. * * * A prudent, economical planter will increase the brood of 

 every species of domestic poultry, particularly turkeys ; for this has a tendency to 

 diminish the brood of the chenille in a very great degree, while profit arises from the 

 augmentation of useful stock. Turkeys are observed to have a remarkable appetite 

 for the larvae of the cotton-moth, and devour prodigious quantities of them? But 

 the most useful and natural enemy of the chenille is the bird called in the colony 

 Chenille bird (the black and yellow Manakyn of Edwards, or the Pipea aureola of Lin- 

 naeus), and the Certhia familiaris, or house wren, and the Parus nigrttsof Linn., men- 

 tioned by Dr. Bancroft (Nat. Hist, of Guiana, p. 182)'. The former of these appears 

 on the coast with the chenille, and the flocks are numerous in proportion to the insect," 

 &c. 



We also learn from Dr. Ure,* in 1835, that the chenille was the most 

 prominent enemy to the cotton plant in British Guiana. 

 In Dutch Guiana cotton culture began in 1706, and considerable 

 * Cotton Manufacture, I, 174. 



