CHAPTER II. 



CHAEACTERS, HABITS, AND I^fATURAL HISTORY. 



[Plate I.] 



The Cotton Worm, like most other insects, and all belonging to its 

 Order and Family, exists in four distinct states, which differ much from 

 each other. They are, 1st, the egg ; 2d, the larva or worm ; 3d, the chrysa- 

 lis; 4th, the imago or moth. 



The worm must hatch from an egg deposited by the female moth. 

 All theories to the contrary, such as its supposed spontaneous develop- 

 ment from the plant, or its origin from the cotton-seed, are therefore 

 utterly without foundation. They need emphatic denial here, because 

 of their prevalence not only among the negroes and the more ignorant, 

 but among intelligent men unfamiliar with the principles of biology. 

 Such theories always have been, and doubtless always will be entertained 

 in explanation of the apparently sudden appearance and rapid multipli- 

 cation of any insect or other organism in which the preliminary phases 

 of the phenomena are easily overlooked or with difficulty traced. We 

 will indicate the characteristics of these four states, so as to enable the 

 reader unacquainted with any or all of them to recognize the species in 

 any phase of its growth and to distinguish it from all other insects, and 

 will give detailed descriptions of the different stages elsewhere.^ On 

 Plate I, more particularly, we have represented, of natural size, all the 

 different phases, as they may be observed in the field. 



THE EGG. 



The egg is 0.6™°^ wide, circular, much flattened and ribbed, as at Fig. 1. 

 Of a bright bluish-green or sea-green when first laid, it contrasts suffi- 

 ciently with the warmer green of the leaf to 

 be easily" detected, even by the naked eye 

 when practised (Plate I, Fig. 1). It is 

 laid singly, and fastened with such firmness 

 as not to be easily removed without injury. 

 It is laid by preference, during early sum mer, 

 on the under side of the larger and lower 

 leaves, and seldom more than three or four fig.i.-egg of alexia: a, from above; 

 are found on one leaf. In confinement and ^' *™°^ ^ide. (After KUey.) 

 exceptionally in nature it will be laid on the upper surface of the leaf, 

 or on any other exposed i^art of the plant. In autumn, more particu- 

 larly, the upper leaves receive a due share of the eggs, and we have 



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