IKSECTS INJUEI0U8 TO TOBACCO, 221 



and then bore into the forming ear, but as the corn 

 hardens they leave it for cotton, tobacco, etc. When 

 an abundant food-supply of corn or cotton is not found 

 by them during the early part of the season, they 

 turn to tobacco. On tobacco the moths deposit their 

 eggs in the buds, and when the larvae emerge from them 

 a few days later, they do very serious injury by eating 

 the unrolled leaves, boring into the bud, which may 

 be entirely consumed by a large worm. As the leaves 

 grow, these holes become larger, and the leaves are thus 

 ruined for the best grade of tobacco. The later broods 

 seem to prefer the unripened seed-capsules, and eating 

 into them they devour the immature seed. From two 

 weeks to a month are required for a larva to become full- 

 grown, when it descends into the ground and constructs a 

 loose silken cocoon just below the surface. In this it 

 transforms to the pupa, or chrysalis, and remains dormant 

 for from one to four weeks, when the adidt moth emerges. 

 The moths are about the same size and belong to the same 

 family — Noctuidce — as those of the Cutworms. The color 

 varies from dull ochre-yellow to dull olive-green;' both 

 wings are bordered with dark bands; the wing-veins are 

 black, and there are several other dark markings on the 

 fore wings. Throughout the cotton -belt there are four or 

 five broods during a season, but fewer farther north, the 

 number depending upon the latitude and season. 



Another species of this genus {Heliothis rhexm) has 

 been found to be more common in Kentucky, and, as it is 

 not known to attack any other cultivated plant, is known 

 as the '-Tobacco Bud-worm." Both species are usually 

 found where tobacco is raised and in Florida the Corn- 

 worm (^H. armigei') is the most injurious. They are alike 



