448 REPORT UPON COTTON INSECTS. 



They web upon any leaf they can find ; have found them on leaves of potatoes (sweet), 

 peas (Held), cockle, on what is known as the hog- weed; have found them in locks of 

 cotton on the stalk; have found them in the cotton-seed in the gin-house. After all 

 leaves are gone oue can see them hanging by slender threads, but strong, to the limbs 

 of cotton-btalks. [P. S. Clarke, Waller. 



They will fold almost any kind of leaf, as we call it, to web up in. A large number 

 of them perish while in a webbed state and a large number come forth a full-fledged 

 butterfly. They do not spin any other way but in a folded leaf. [O. K. P. Garrett, 

 Washington. 



I have known them webbed in various other plants ; they do not confine themselves 

 to cotton alone to web in. [P. S. Watts, Hardin. 



When the leaves are consumed they spin a slight cocoon and suspend from the stem 

 of a leaf or branch of the cotton. [J. M. Glasco, Upshnr. 



In any kind of leaf they can find after the cotton-leaf is destroyed. [S. B. Tacka-. 

 berry, Polk. 



In no other. [H. J. H. Brensing, Bowie. 



I never saw them anywhere else. [W. Barnes, Cherokee. 



None. [R. Wippreclit, Coraal. 



They spin on all plants adjacent to the cotton field, on the weeds or grass at the edge 

 of the field or between the rows [J. H. Krancher, Austin. 



Never on anything but the cotton leaf or stalk. [C. B. Richardson, Rnsk. 



I have seen them on the careless and other weeds ; infact, they will web on most 

 anything after they have eaten up the cotton. [S. Harbert, Colorado. 



On the naked cotton-limb, weeds, and grass after the leaves were devoured. [ J. W. 

 Jackson, Titus. 



No other. [Natt, Holman, Fayette. 



Most unquestionably, and beyond all reasonable doubt, they burrow in the ground 

 at or near the precise spot where they lower themselves after leaving their leafy cov- 

 ering by a delicate web from the cotton-bush to the earth, because they are there 

 traced and unearthed. [William J. Jones, Galveston. 



After the process of wrapping themselves in their own meshes is complete they free 

 themselves from their leafy covering, showing a perfect cocoon, and suspend themselves, 

 in their effort to reach the ground, by a tiny thread. When they reach the earth, they 

 work or bore themselves below its surface with wonderful rapidity far enough to 

 evade all ordinary casualties and to be thoroughly hid from view. There they remain 

 till some are disturbed by the plow, while the remainder are content to hibernate till 

 their natural instinct prompts them to take wing and seek for their special, if not 

 only food, the cotton-leaf. The fact that they appear at one time late and another 

 season early, or are more numerous at one period or place than another, or in some 

 seasons not coming forth at all, may be due to local causes yet remaining to be dis- 

 covered. The best word the most enlightened planter can yet say of this titfulness of 

 instinct is that it is a profound mystery in nature. If the growth of the cotton-plant 

 were such as to allow us to fallow our lands in the fall, we might destroy a vast num- 

 ber of these cocoons. This occasionally happens where a crop has met with an early 

 disaster, as in my own crop hero the last year, a field of 300 acres of cotton being 

 destroyed by a cyclone on the 15th of September, and consequently perhaps very Jew 

 worms appearing this year very late in the season and doing no sensible damage. We 

 have had no frost as yet (November 23); the cotton is nearly in full foliage, many 

 blooms and some few young bolls from the second growth showing themselves, but no 

 appearance of the worm. It was this second growth of cotton upon which the moth 

 tarried this season. [William J. Jones, Virginia Point. 



QUESTIOX 5e. Have you, ever known the chrysalis to survive a frost or to be found in 

 sound and healthy condition in winter? 



ALABAMA. 



I never have known the chrysalis to live through winter. I do not believe the worm 

 lives more than ten days in the chrysalis state. I examined quite a number of them 

 last September, when they had spun on weeds after the cotton had been eaten, and 

 never was able to find anything in the web after ten days ; they had all matured and 

 come out. [I. N. Gilmore, Sumter. 



I have not. Many farmers think differently. The chrysalis of the cut- worm is mis- 

 taken for the cotton-worm. My observation has been that a chrysalis placed on the 

 ground invariably perishes, by sunshine or moisture, provided ants leave it long 

 enough to succumb to those influences. [P. T. Graves, Lowndes. 



