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REPORT ON THE ARMY WORM, Leucania unipuncta HAW. 

 BY CARLETON A. SHURTLEFF OF BROOKLINE. 



The nation was not more surprised at the audacity and 

 wickedness of the Southern traitors last year, than were 

 the farmers at the appearance and ravages of the Army 

 Worm last Summer ; they came in such myriads and were 

 so voracious that they threatened the destruction of the en- 

 tire grain crop where they appeared. Most persons consid- 

 ered them entirely new, and to many uneducated in the laws 

 according to which nature works they appeared to be spon- 

 taneously created from the earth itself. 



But we find this visitation is not unparalleled ; they often 

 appear at the South and do immense damage ; and we have 

 had them here before ; they have visited Massachusetts on 

 a number of occasions in the olden time ; I take Dr. Fitch's 

 dates from the Boston Cultivator. 



" In 1743 there were ' millions of devouring worms, in 

 armies threatening to cut off every green thing.' Flint's 

 2d Report, Agric. of Mass. p. 86. 



" In 1770 a black worm about an inch and a half long, 

 devoured the grass and corn. They all moved in one direc- 

 tion, and when they were intercepted by furrows in ploughed 

 land, they fell into them in such numbers as to form heaps. 

 They sought shelter in the grass, a hot sun being fatal to 

 them ; they disappeared suddenly about the close of June 

 and beginning of July.' Webster on Pestilence vol. 1, 

 p. 259. 



" Eleven years afterwards the same kind of worm ap- 

 peared again, but they were few in number." Cultivator, 

 10th Aug. 



" 1790 Millions of the same black worm reappeared in 

 Hartford and Norwich, Conn." 



" 1817 It appeared May 22d in Worcester ; also in Al- 

 'bay." It is stated in the Albany Argus that it attacked 

 flax particularly. Now as I have seen it stated that the 

 army worm of 1861 did not attack flax, these may have 

 been different species, though they may have been harder 

 pushed for food then, than in 1861. Everything else we 

 inow of their habits goes to show that they were probably 



ESSEX INST. PROCEED. VOL. iii. 25. 



