ENTOMOLOGY 173 



as thoroughly as white grubs or cutworms can do. When land so 

 infested is planted to corn, this plant is very likely to be heavily 

 injured, or even completely destroyed over considerable areas in 

 early spring. The injury done is somewhat like that due to cut- 

 worms, and is largely under ground, but, on the other hand, the 

 stems are rarely completely severed until the whole plant is eaten 

 up. Commonly the first injury to the plant is done by gnawing the 

 outer surface beneath the ground and about the roots. Then the 

 caterpillar works upward, eating a superficial furrow or burrowing 

 lengthwise along the center of the stem. The leaves are also fre- 

 quently eaten, the lower ones first, and then .the upper ones. The 

 tips are eaten off, or irregular elongate holes are eaten through the 

 blades. The injury being done at night, search must be made 

 for the author of it by day by digging around the affected hills. 

 The web-worms will commonly be found just below the surface, 

 each in a retreat formed by loosely webbing together a mass of dirt, 

 more or less cylindrical in shape, an inch and a half to two inches 

 long, and about half an inch through. Within this mass is a silk- 

 lined tube opening at the surface of the ground next to a stalk of 

 corn, and within this specially prepared domicile a single caterpil- 

 lar is secreted. Injuries due to these web-worms are commonly at- 

 tributed by farmers to cut-worms, and the caterpillars themselves 

 are similarly confounded. This error would signify but little ex- 

 cept for a single important difference in the midsummer life his- 

 tory which has its bearing on the proper time of plowing the sod 

 in spring, and that for planting or replanting the corn. Cutworms 

 are never protected by an underground web, are much larger than 

 web-worms, make no active efforts to escape when disturbed, but 

 curl up and remain inactive, and are without rows of conspicuous 

 shining spots upon the body, these being represented by small and 

 inconspicuous ones. 



TheSnjury to corn by the sod web-worms is not uncommon in 

 fields planted on sod ground, and as it begins quite early and may 

 last some weeks, it is fully as serious as a similar attack by cutworms 

 or white grubs. Frequently more or less extensive replanting is re- 

 quired, and sometimes whole fields are completely destroyed two 

 or three times in succession. 



Unless the damage they do is very serious it is hardly no- 

 ticed, or, if noticed, attributed to other causes. As the larvae live a 

 retired life, close to the surface, eating mostly at night and remain- 

 ing in their nests during the day, they are rarely seen. Like most 

 Iarva3 they feed most voraciously just as they are completing their 

 growth ; consequently, when the damage is noticed most of the larvre 

 are hidden in their retreats where they pupate. In these places none 

 but an experienced entomologist would find them, or would think 

 of associating the damage done with the harmless appearing moths 

 that fly later. 



Hardly any farmer would think seriously of the loss of only 

 one stalk of grass in ten, yet the aggregate for the country at largo 

 would be enormous, Not only is the damage to a crop whore notli- 



