PACKARD.] CUT- WORMS INJURING ROOTS OF CORN. 717 



subjected to a killing heat, is to stack the grain a year or two until the 

 insects are starved out of the barns, just as they lay by ships in the 

 grain-trade, or use them for other iVeight when they once become infested 

 with this insect, or with the true grain- weevil." — (Lliley.) 



AFFECTING INDIAN CORN.— INJURING THE ROOTS. 



CuT-woi!MS, Afjrotis siiffusa (Denis and Schieferniiiller) and other Hpecies. (Plate 

 LXV, Figs. 2, '^, 4, 5.) Eating the roots of corn and other cereals ; large, dark, obscurely- 

 colored, smooth-bodied caterpillars, hiding by day and feeding by night. 



Not only Indian corn but other cereals and gra.'^ses are indiscriminately 

 attacked by different species of caterpillars called cut worms from their 

 habit of cutting off young, succulent plants as they are coming up out 

 of the ground. They are thick, with a distinct hornj' prothoracic plate, 

 and are usually marked with shining and warty, or smooth, spots of the 

 same general color as the rest of the body ; they are usually striped 

 longitudinally. They are seen early iu spring hiding under sticks and 

 stones, having hibernated in this state. They feed by night, hiding in 

 the day-time. The chrysalids are situated under ground. They trans- 

 form to moths, sometimes call dart-moths, which might be known by 

 their crested trunks and ciliated or pectinated antennae, while the fore 

 wings are rather narrow, usually with a dark dot near the middle of the 

 wing, and just beyond a reniform marking, while there is usually a basal, 

 median, black streak. The moths appear in midsummer, and lay their 

 eggs near the roots of grasses, which hatch in the autumn, the worms 

 living on roots and sprouts of herbaceous plants. "On the approach of 

 winter they descend deeper into the ground, and, curling themselves up, 

 remain in a torpid state until the following spring, when they ascend 

 toward the surface, and renew their devastation.s." — (Harris.) 



Our largest species, Agroiis sirfusa (Plate LXV, Fig. 2), was probably 

 imported from Europe. The caterpillar is described as follows by Eiley : 



Its general color above is dnll, dark, leaden-hrown, with a faint trace of a dirty 

 yellow-white line along the back. The subdorsal line is more distinct, and between it 

 and the stigmata are two other indistinct pale lines. There are eigbt black, shiny, 

 piliferous spots on each segment, two near the subdorsal line, the smaller a little 

 above anteriorlj- ; the larger just below it, and a little back of the middle of the seg- 

 ment, with the line appearing especially light above it. The other two are placed 

 each side of the stigmata, the one anteriorly a little above, the other just behind, in 

 the same line with them, and having a white shade above it. 



Another cut-worm, which is still more abundant iu the Middle and 

 New England States, is the young of the Clandestine moth (Xoctua 

 clandestina of Harris), and may be called the Corn cut moth. While 

 the fully-growu caterpiller has not been described, the young are said by 

 Harris to be " more or less distinctly marked above with pale and dark 

 stripes, and are uniformly paler below." According to Melsheimer, as 

 quoted by Harris, when first hatched, it feeds on the various grasses, 

 descending, when half-grown, in the ground on the approach of severe 

 frosts, and re-appearing in the spring, and then beginning to grow again, 

 attaining their full size and pupating before the middle of July, often 

 much earlier, as in. the New England States the moth is seen from the 

 middle of June to the middle or end of August. 



Moth. — It is of a peculiar dull-blackish, with the body very flat when the wings are 

 expanded, and with obscure markings. "The fore wings are generally of a dark ash- 

 color, with only a very faint trace of the double transverse wavy bands that are found 

 in most si)ecie8 of Agrotis ; the two ordinary spots are small and narrow, the anterior 

 spot being oblong oval, and counected with the oblique kidney-shaped spot by a lon- 

 gitudinal black line." The hind wings are rather dark, and the head and legs darker 

 than usual, almost blackish. It expands an inch and three-quarters. 



