NOCTUIDiE — ANTLER-MOTH, CUT- WORM, ETC. 247 



what figure or shape they please, and cause its motion 

 through the air, that people might behold it, and thence 

 draw a signification of its events." Further, a comet ap- 

 pearing in the Taurus portends "mortality to the greater 

 part of cattle, as horses, oxen, cows, etc.," and also "pro- 

 digious shipwrecks, damage in fisheries, monstrous floods, 

 and destruction of fruit by caterpillars and other vermin. "^ 



Josselyn, in the account of his voyage to iS"(fw England, 

 printed in London in 16t4, has the following relation of an 

 insect which is doubtless a species of Agrotis, probably the 

 Agrotis telifera: "There is also (in New England) a dark 

 dunnish Worm or Bug of the bigness of an Oaten-straw, 

 and an inch long, that in the Spring lye at the Root of 

 Corn and Garden plants all day, and in the night creep out 

 and devour them; these in some years destroy abundance 

 of Indian Corn and Garden plants, and they have but one 

 way to be rid of them, which the English have learned of 

 the Indians ; And because it is somewhat strange, I shall 

 tell you how it is, they go out into a field or garden with a 

 Birchen-dish, and spudling the earth about the roots, for 

 they lye not deep, they gather their dish full which may 

 contain a quart or three pints, then they carrie the dish to 

 the Sea-side when it is ebbing water and set it a swimming, 

 the water carrieth the dish into the Sea, and within a day 

 or two you go into your field you may look your eyes out 

 sooner than find any of them."^ 



The Army-worm (larva of Leucania unipiincfata of 

 Haworth), during this our great rebellion, is thought, by 

 many persons in Western Pennsylvania, to prognosticate 

 the success or defeat of our armies by the direction it travels. 

 If toward the North, the South will be victorious ; and if 

 toward the South, the North will conquer. An old gentle- 

 man, who believes that a frog's foot drawn in chalk above 

 the door will keep away witches, tells me this worm invari- 

 ably travels southward. 



This larva was noticed but a few years before the war 

 began, and then appearing, as it were, in armies, it was 

 called the Army-worm. The superstitious omen from it 

 has followed not preceded the name. 



Lindenbrog, in his Codex Legum Antiquarum, cum 



1 Lilly's Prophetical Merlin, pub. in 1644. 



2 Josselyn's Voy., p. IIG. 



