ENTOMOLOGY 245 



large green caterpillar with long recurved red horns; the large 

 green, somewhat jiairy larva of the Imperial moth and the large 

 spiny larva of Ecpantheria, as well as the yellow-green stinging 

 caterpillar of the lo moth and the woolly bear caterpillars. 



Two bagworms are also occasionally found feeding upon cotton 

 leaves, constructing their cases from fragments of the leaves sewed 

 together with silk. These are the common bagworm of the North, 

 and Abbot's bagworm, a Southern species. Late in the fall the com- 

 mon grass worm, or fall army worm ranges through the cotton 

 fields, feeding upon volunteer grass, and occasionally ragging the 

 leaves of the cotton plant. Two allied native species also occasionally 

 feed upon cotton leaves. 



In a limited section of the country, namely, in portions of 

 Texas and the Indian Territory, the so-called garden webworm oc- 

 casionally does some damage to the cotton crop, as it did in 1885. 

 Feeding principally upon corn, its injury to cotton is incidental, yet 

 it may, in the early part of the season particularly, do some little 

 damage to this crop. Its preference for corn is noticed mainly when 

 fields overrun with pigweed and careless weed are broken up 

 for planting, and, in fact, these weeds seem to be its natural food. 

 It will probably never do serious damage to cultivated crops, except 

 where these weeds have been allowed to run wild for a season or so 

 and are then plowed under and the land planted to some useful 

 crop. The small green caterpillars feed upon the leaves, concealing 

 themselves between them during the day and skeletonizing them at 

 night. The remedy for any or all of these leaf-feeding caterpillars, 

 whenever one <of them occasionally becomes so abundant as to 

 threaten damage will be to spray with paris green, or dust it on dry, 

 as for the cotton caterpillar, or spray with arsenate of lead. 



Among the other insects which injure the foliage of the cotton 

 plant, grasshoppers are the most prominent. Several species have 

 this habit, and the list of cotton insects contains the names of four- 

 teen which are found upon the plant. Here also the damage to 

 cotton seems incidental; they feed by preference upon grass. The 

 species which ordinarily cause the greatest alarm among cotton 

 planters are the large American locust and the lubber grasshopper. 

 The paris green treatment will again be effective here, but when 

 grasshoppers occur in considerable numbers, attracting them to a 

 mash made of sweetened bran and arsenic will prevent leaf feeding 

 to a great extent. 



Many leaf hoppers and several leaf-feeding beetles have been 

 found upon the cotton plant, but need not be particularly men- 

 tioned here. In many portions of Texas the leaves are frequently 

 cut off by the so called leaf-cutting ant. One of the few practical 

 remedies against this destructive insect, which damages fruit 'trees 

 and other field crops as well as cotton, consists in tracing the ants to 

 their nest (which is often an extremely difficult thing to do) and 



