Bulletin of the New York State Museum. 



tions, or the injuries inflicted to be unmistakably referred to them. 

 Roots are eaten and young 

 blades- and shoots are cut off, 

 and the unknown depredator, 

 as an easy solution of the 

 mystery, is pronounced a cut- 

 worm. Often in these cases, 

 if proper examination were 

 made, it would be found to 

 i* ,-Th. t,„„. proceed from the white grub, J££?£ "■»£ 



cated snappmg-bee- LacktlOStema fuSCCL, shown inANOTUS communis 

 tie, natural size and-,-,. -, „ .. ,,. , iQ.-,ni\ 



enlarged. -fig- 1 5 or one °i its many allied 



forms, or from some species of wire-worm — the larvae of the 

 " snapping beetles " belonging to the family of Elateridce (two of 



the beetles are rep- 

 resented in Figs. 

 2 and 3). Such 



. . , , -, , Fig. 5. — Wire-worm 



mistakes should Truncated snappin 



Fig. 4.— The w-marked cut- not occur ; they are inexcusable. Care- 

 worm Of AGKOTIS CLANDESTINA j. , , ,, 1 •<! i!-1J. 



(Harris). * u * searcn would rarely, it ever, tail to 



bring to the light of day the author of these injuries ; and when 

 found, certainly after all that has been written and figured and 

 gratuitously distributed upon entomological matters, every intelli- 

 gent tiller of the soil in which these creatures lurk, should be able 

 to distinguish between a white grub (Fig. 1), a cut-worm (Fig. 4), a 



wire- worm (Figs. 5 and 6), and a 

 thousand-legged worm (Figs. 7 

 and 8) — the latter not even a true 

 insect. Until this can be done, 

 inquiry should not be made of 

 for the reply would be but a 



Fig. 6. — The common wire-worm. 

 (After Fitch.) 



how to destroy "the cut-worm, 

 random shot fired in darkness. 



What are Cut-worms? 



Cut-worms are caterpillars of moths that belong to the great 



family of Noctuidce, which em- 



^ braces a large proportion of our 



night-flying species of Lepidop- 



Fig. 7. — Thousand-legged worm, Julits ° J . ° r . 



multistriatus Walsh. tera. There are many different 



species — how many we are not able to state even approximately — 



