90 REPORT UPON COTTON INSECTS. 



AXETIA ARGILLACEA Hiibner. 



$ $ . Color above light browii tinged with olive-green and wine color. Expanse 

 of wings one and three-sixteenths inches to one and seven-sixteenths inches (30 mm to 

 36 mm ). Length of body three-sixteenths to eleven-sixteenths inches (13 ram to 17 mm ). 

 Head varies from light brown to wine color, with a small whitish tuft before. Anten- 

 nae clothed with dark-wine colored and white scales above, and short yellow hairs be- 

 low. Mandibles conic, light yellow, furnished at the tip with a brush of spiny hairs. 

 Labial palpi densely clothed with short scales which are white and wine color mixed ; 

 second joint twice the length of the first; third joint equaling the first in length but 

 much smaller. Thorax same color as head. Anterior wings tinged with wine color 

 on the inner and middle part, shading into a light olive-green on the external por- 

 tion. In some specimens the anterior wings are light olive-green throughout ; in other 

 specimens the reddish tinge is very pronounced. 



External to and in front of the central portion of the anterior wing is a conspicuous 

 black or grayish spot, composed of dark scales interspersed with white ones. Parallel 

 to the anterior margin of the wing is a row of four minute white spots ; one is situated 

 at the base of the wing, one between the dark discal spot and the anterior margin of 

 the wing, the other two at equal distances between these ; one or more of these spots 

 are frequently wanting, and sometimes each one is surrounded by reddish scales; the 

 anterior wing is also marked by three transverse wavy lines, of a reddish color mar- 

 gined with white; the inner line is one-fourth of the length of the wing from the body, 

 the second line is near the middle of the wing, and the third line is outside the discal 

 spot. Fringe white with six reddish spots: posterior wings-with basal portion light, 

 and outer part clouded ; lower surface light brownish gray; anterior wings with disk 

 clouded and a short reddish band on the outer third of costa ; posterior wings with a 

 transverse, narrow, wavy, brown baud near the middle of the wing. Described from 

 75 specimens. 



THE THREE CROPS OF WORMS. 



Notwithstanding that there are probably five or six broods of cotton- 

 worms every year in the southern and central parts of the cotton belt, 

 it is generally believed that there are only three broods. These have 

 been designated by the planters as the first, second, and third crops re- 

 spectively. It is impossible to state a rule by which it can be determined 

 to what broods the three crops correspond, as this differs in different 

 localities and different seasons. Almost invariably numbers of the first 

 brood of worms, and very often of the second, also, are so small that they 

 escape the no? ice of observers. After a brood of sufficient size to be easily 

 perceived has been developed, in about two more generations a sufficient 

 number of worms is produced to strip the cotton of its foliage. The re- 

 sult of this, as will be shown later, is the destruction of the greater part 

 of the worms also. The subsequent broods are small ; on this :u-<;ount, 

 and because of the cotton crop being destroyed, the planters lose inter- 

 est in the development of the worms, and the later broods arc not no- 

 ticed. In a word, the idea of there being only three "crops" of worms 

 has arisen from the fact that as a, rule there are only three broods of 

 sufficient size to be noticed by the plan UTS bonne the cotton crop is 



American Natuiulist. the fact that (specimens of ar</iloea ii'-w into his study window 

 at Providence Sept. 30. He says : The moth was in a perfectly fresh condition, and 

 bore every appearance of having quite recently emerged from the chrysali... Its 

 appearance certainly did not bear out the theory that all the northern individuals fly 

 northward from the cotton belt," &c. 



