Season 0/I8I6. 223 



Pittsfield, Berkshire Co. Mass. August 5, 1817. 



Sir, 



This is agreeable to a notice I saw in the Pittsfield 

 Sun, taken from a Philadelphia paper. 



There are two species of the cut or corn worm of Pitts- 

 field ; the large worm is of the size of a large goose quill, 

 in length an inch and one-fourth ; when it is about to 

 leave the nympha state, it becomes dull, and sinks four 

 inches into the earth, to put on the aurelia state, which is 

 a bright chesnut coloured shell ; in forty days it comes 

 out a clouded, mouse coloured, muffle headed miller, 

 over three-fourths of an inch in length. The small worm, 

 perhaps equally mischievous, is an inch in length, and in 

 size proportioned ; it takes a similar course, and comes 

 out a miller, not three-fourths of an inch in length, in co- 

 lour and marks resembling a partridge's tail feather.* 



William Brattle, Jr. 

 Hon. Richard Peters. 



* At the moment when I was about communicating the result 

 of an experiment with the corn grub, on my own farm, I receiv- 

 ed the foregoing letter. Many grubs had been placed in a box, 

 with sods and other food for them, by my son. His endeavours 

 were baffled by the playful curiosity of a little grandson, who dis- 

 turbed, with a stick, the greatest number of the subjects of the tri- 

 al. Yet two passed through the stages described by Mr. Brattle; 

 and came out large clouded moths ; resembling that which Mr. 

 B. calls a miller. Another was found by my son, in the corn 

 field I have mentioned. It was sent to Mr. Say. I relate these 

 facts, as being contemporaneous proofs, in distant parts of our 

 country. Many ichneumon files have been seen, bred in, and 

 proceeding from, the carcasses of dead grubs. But these are dif- 

 ferent from the parent of that reptile. R. Peters. 



