CAPE COD CRANBERRY INSECTS 31 



t^prai/iini. 



8i>rayinfi' Ixigs while tlie worms are small never has lieen fairly tried. A 

 spray of 6 pounds of dry lead arsenate in 100 gallons of water should lie 

 effective. The worms are hard to poison after they are half-grown. 



Baitiiu/. 



See page 26. 



Black Cutworin,.^' 



This pest attacks cranberry bogs seriously only when the winter flood has 

 been held till the last of May or later. It sometimes works with the spotted 

 cutworm and also with the armyworni. 



DUitribution and Food Plants. 



Important outbreaks of this pest have occurred in Indiana, Oregon and 

 India^^ on lands which, having been overflowed, became drained at a time 

 favorable to egg laying by the moths. It inhabits nearly the whole civilized 

 world. Apple, asparagus, bean, beet, cabbage, chicory, cotton, corn, grape, 

 grass, onion, potato, spinach, squash, strawberry, tobacco, and tomato are 

 among its food plants. The worms devour each other and spotted cutworms 

 greedily. 



Character of Injiiri/. 

 This worm works on cranberry vines much as the armyworni does (seep. 33). 



Description and Seasonal Hhttori/. 



The life history has not been traced thorougiily. There seems to be much 

 irregularity in it. The insect winters as a worm in various stages of growth 

 and sometimes as a pupa. The moths are active from late May till late Oc- 

 tober. There probably are two broods in this state, the moths of the first being 

 most abundant in June and July and those of the second in August and 

 September. Egg laying occurs in June and July, — probably throughout most 

 of those months. The eggs are said to hatch in about twenty-two days. 



The Worm. 



In its early life this caterpillar usually is mostly a rather indefinite green- 

 ish brown or gray in color, tiie green element being due to the food in the 

 worm rather than to dermic pigment. When more mature (Plate Two, fig. 5), 

 it is mostly dark brown or sooty gray on the back and sides and grayish 

 below. A rather indefinite and inconspicuous broad stripe of somewhat light- 



38. Agroiis ypsilon (Rott.)- Also known as the "greasy cutworm." 



39. Rockwood. L. P.. 1925. Journ. Econ. Ent.. Vol. 18, No. 5, p. 717. 



