236 THIRTIETH REPORT ON THE STATE MUSEUM. []24] 



and 31st. No other examples of it have occurred among the 

 very large collections made at this locality. 



Agrotis cupida Grote.* 



A correspondent of the Country Gentleman, from Erie Co., 

 0., has recently discovered the food-plant of the larva of this 

 species. From his communication we obtain the following 

 facts: In 1874, $200 worth of grape-buds were destroyed by 

 some unseen enemy. Repeated and careful examinations for 

 many days throughout the season failed to bring to light the 

 depredator. The following year, upon examining the vine at 

 night with a lantern, a caterpillar was seen crawling along 

 the vine, and to stop at a bud and commence eating it. . After 

 this discovery, searches were made each night, by six or eight 

 persons bearing lanterns, during the continuance of the cater- 

 pillar, and two thousand caterpillars were taken and de- 

 stroyed. It was calculated, on the basis of one caterpillar 

 eating a single bud in a night, that the buds destroyed by the" 

 two thousand which were killed, might have produced eight 

 tons of grapes. 



As one bud a night would be a very small allowance for 

 a half-grown cut- worm, it would be safe, we think, to double 

 the above estimate of possible resulting damages. 



Nothing is stated of the appearance or habits of the larva, 

 except that it is of the color of the vine, and commences its 

 depredations as soon as the buds begin to start. 



During my sugaring operations at Schenectady, larvae were 

 occasionally seen upon the grape-trellis at night, feeding upon 

 the bait, but from my recollection of them, they had not the 

 aspect of such of the Agrotis forms as I have seen. 



A single example of the moth occurred among my collec- 

 tions at Schenectady, on the 7th of August, 1876. It had been 

 a rare species in this vicinity, until the remarkable Center col- 

 lections of 1877 made it a common form. It occurred abund- 

 antly at this locality during the latter part of August and 

 through most of September. 



Mr. George Norman (Canadian Entomologist, 7, p. 5) re- 

 cords it frequent at sugar, at St. Catharines, Ont., from 17th 

 July to August. Mr. Westscott (op. cit., 8, p. 12), notes a 



*Noctua cupida Grote : in Proc. Ent. Soc. Phila., vol. iii, p. 535, pi. 5, flg. 7. 1864. 

 Agrotis cupida Grote : in Trans. Amer. Ent. Soc., vol. ii, p. 309. 1869. 

 A new grape-inseot: The Cultivator and Country (ientlen^an, vol. xliii, p. 166. Albany, 

 N. Y., March 14, 1878. 



