16 



Bulletin of the New Yoek State Museum. 



Cotton. — Early cotton — February planted, is frequently dam- 

 aged by different species of cut- worms, particularly by the Cabbage 

 Cut- worm, Agrotis amiexa (Treits.). (Bulletin No. 1, Dept. Agricul. — 

 Div. Entomol., 1883, p. 44.) Lapliygma frugiperda (Sm.-Abb.) is 

 also injurious to cotton, according to Glover, who has illlustrated 

 the insect in its different stages, and its earthern cocoon, in plate 9 

 of his MS. Notes — Cotton, under the name of the " Grass worm." 

 Smilax. — This beautiful and delicate twiner, Myrsiphyllum 



asparagoides, has been injured 

 by the Variegated Cut-worm, 

 Agrotis saucia (Hubn.), which 

 has attacked it in conservatories 

 in Lowell, Mass., and eaten off 

 the softer parts and especially 

 the top of the plant (American 

 Entomologist, 1880, iii, p. 298). 

 The worm and its moth are 

 represented in Fig. 21. It is 

 one of our commonest .cut- 

 d c ' worms, which is ever ready to 

 attack almost any kind of ten- 

 der vegetation, and has often been known to climb vines and 

 feed upon their foliage. The moth was for a long time known as 

 Agrotis inermis Harris, but later was ascertained to be identical 

 with the A. saucia (Hubn.), of Europe. 



Floioers. — In a bed of hyacinths, at Buffalo, N. Y., just as the 

 flower buds had commenced to open, the flower-scapes were cut 

 off — hardly one in five remaining. 



Mr. William Saunders has noticed a special fondness of cut- 

 worms for pansies. " Many fine plants of this flower of the pre- 

 vious year's growth were found, early in the season, eaten close to 

 the ground, both leaves and stalks, and from about the roots of a 

 single plant from thirty to fifty of the nearly full-grown larvae were 

 taken (Canadian Entomologist, 1880, xii, p. 189). 



A gentleman writing for a cut-worm remedy, from Greenwich, 

 R. I., states that nasturtiums, phlox, and carnations had suffered 

 severely. Dr. Harris mentions asters, balsams, and pinks as often 

 shorn of their leaves and of their central buds by these concealed 

 spoilers (Ins. Inf. Veg., p. 443). 



Some beds of phlox bordering a carriage-way in New Jersey, 



Fig. 21.— Agrotis saucia 

 head and a middle joint of the same, en 

 larged ; d, the moth. 



