NOTES. [99] 



" When these insects first appeared, various attempts were made to destroy them ; 

 but so rapid is their increase, that nothing done by the hand of man, has been able to 

 diminish their numbers, so as to be in the least perceptible'. Nor is it probable that 

 anything will destroy them, excepting such causes as have already been related; viz. 

 powerful storms, of wind and rain, and their own prodigious numbers destroying their 

 food before the completion of the summer season. The Palma-Christi and Benn^ have 

 both been said to keep them away from the cotton, and, I have known them planted for 

 that purpose about the cotton fields, but without producing any good effect ; and I 

 believe that the planters are now satisfied that they are useless." 



Descriptions of the earlier states of Aletia xylina (Say). 



Egg. — Diameter O-G"^™, plano-convex, circular. Around its center are grouped three 

 series of elongate either pentagonal or hexagonal cells, the middle series largest, this 

 central area or micropile subpentagonal ; radiating ribs quite sharp and somewhat 

 wavy, from 35 to 40 in number, and about half of them more or less shortened ; cross 

 ribs 12 to 14 in number. Color, at first a delicate bluish- or sea-green, becoming a 

 more dingy yellowish-green when near the hatching period. Empty shell white, 

 glistening and transparent. 



Larva. First Stage. — Length when just from egg 1.4™°»; quite slender. Head im- 

 maculate, much larger than joint 1. Legs very long, except first two pairs of prolegs, 

 which are rudimentary and scarcely perceptible. Color almost white, with a faint 

 tinge of green. Head pale yellow, ocelli black. Piliferous warts blackish (see Fig. 

 2, p. 6), each giving rise to a slender dusky hair. 



Second Stage. — Length just after molt 3.6°=^, similar to previous stage, except that 

 the warts of the body become more distinct, and that the characteristic black spots of 

 the head appear, 11 each side, each furnished with a stiff blackish hair. The rudi- 

 mentary legs are also somewkat longer. 



Third Stage. — Length 6°^™. In this stage the final markings, or those of the full- 

 grown larva, begin to show, though there is much variation in color. The most 

 strongly-marked individuals have a broad, deep black, mediodersal stripe, bordered 

 each side by a fine, clear white line ; the sides and venter are whitish or yellowish- 

 white, the sides often slightly dusky and with a faint indication of the white sub- 

 stigmatal line ; stigmata very small and dusky. Head orange ; piliferous spots with 

 a white or yellowish aimulus. 



Fourth Stage. — Length 9"^. Colors bright and lines more distinctly contrasting. 

 In the dark specimens, a narrow black line borders the white subdorsal, the sides are 

 more dusky, and the pale supra-stigmatal line more distinct. 



Fifth Stage. — Length about 16"^™. Coloration similar to that of the previous stage. 



Sixth or Ihst larval Stage. — Length when full grown 38 to 40™"^. Slender, tapering 

 somewhat toward both ends. Head smaE, round, free. Legs of normal number, but 

 the first pair of prolegs atrophied. Head more or less orange or ochre-yellow, marked 

 with 30 regularly arranged black spots ; antennae 3-jointed, the first joint large, coni- 

 cal, fleshy; second joint shortest, often not visible, being withdrawn into the first; 

 third joint slender, about as long as the first, slightly thickest toward apex; its tip 

 obliquely truncated, bearing a small subjoint, a short slender, fleshy tubercle, and a 

 long bristle and a shorter hair at its outer extremity. Ocelli 6, clear, colorless: 

 mandibles strong, pale yellowish or greenish ; tip blackish, with rather dull teeth. 

 Color of body variable. Black stripes and markings of the dark specimens are deep 

 velvety black. Normal color green, with longitudinal lines of a white or yellowish 

 color, as follows : A fine medio-dorsal, a rather broader sub-dorsal, and coincident with 

 this last and about the same width, a supra-stigmatal, and, finally, a sub-stigmatal, the 

 distance between the last two being about twice that between the previous two. In 

 the pale specimens the medio-dorsal white line is almost always relieved by two black 

 lines, or rather by a black border on either side, but the whole dorsum is more or less 

 dusky, and in the darkest si)ecimens it may be, including the cervical shield, quite black, 

 as also interspaces between the lateral lines. The supra-stigmatal line in the darkest 



