[102] REPORT 



States, and in this paper the fact of its hibernation, principally under the shelter of 

 rank wire-grass, is established from observations and experiments made during the 

 winter and spring of 1881-'2. The moth has been taken at ji^cher, Fla., during 

 every winter month until the early part of March, when it began to disappear, but 

 not until eggs were found deposited. The first brood of worms was found of all sizes 

 during the latter part of the same month on rattoon cotton, while chrysalides and 

 fresh moths were obtained during the early part of April. 



''The fact thus established has this important bearing : 



" Whereas upon the theory of annual invasion from some exotic country there was 

 no incentive to winter or spring work looking to the destruction of the moths, there 

 is now every incentive to such action as will destroy it either by attracting it during 

 mild winter weather by sweets, or by burning the grass under which it shelters- It 

 should also be a warning to cotton-growers to abandon the slovenly method of cul- 

 tivation which leaves the old cotton-stalks standing either until the next crop is 

 planted or long after that event ; for many planters have the habtt of planting the 

 seed in a furrow between the old rows of stalks. The most careful recent researches 

 all tend to confirm the belief that Gossypium is the only plant upon which the worm 

 can feed in the South ; so that in the light of the facts presented there is all the 

 greater incentive to that mode of culture which will prevent the growth of rattoon 

 cotton, since it is questionable whether the moth will survive long enough to perpet- 

 uate itself upon newly sown cotton except for the intervention of the rattoon cotton." 



Note 13 (p. 13). — These observations have been made more particularly upon the 

 Army Worm (Leucania unipuncta) and the Rocky Mountain Locust ( Caloptenus spretus), 

 and bear, of course, upon the successive hatching within the limits of hibernating 

 regions rather than upon the northward spread of the insects outside of these limits. 

 (See Eighth Missouri Entomological Report, p. 47^ and First Report United States 

 Entomological Commission, p. 232.) 



Note 14 (p. 13). — Dr. Phares is the only writer who has, so far as we can learn, re- 

 corded as many as six generations from July 6, 1869, till frost. — Bural Carolinian, i, 

 p. 695. 



Note 15 (p. 15). — In reference *to this subject, we quote the following on the pos- 

 sible food-plants, published by us in the American jSfaturalist for April, 1882, pp. 327- 

 328: ''One of the most interesting characteristics of the Cotton Worm is that it is 

 so strictly confined to cotton as its food-plant. All attempts, hitherto made to dis- 

 cover additional food-plants have proved futile, nor have we been able to ever make 

 it feed successfully on oth&r plants allied to Gossypium.* We have, however, long 

 felt that there must be some other wild plant or plants upon which the species 

 can exist, and this belief has been all the stronger since it was demonstrated two 

 years ago from observations made by Dr. P. R. Hoy that the larva may occur in 

 Wisconsin, and, consequently, out of the range of the cotton belt.t We have given 

 special directions to those in any way connected with the Cotton Worm investigation 

 to search for such additional food-plants, but so far no additional food-plant has been 

 discovered. Last November we received from Dr. J. C. Neal, of Archer, Fla. , specimens 

 of a plant with eggs and newly-hatched larvas which he believed to be those of Aletia, 

 but which belong to an allied species— the Anomis erosa Guen. The plant proved to 

 be one of the MalvaceaB ( Urena lolata Linn.), which is reported as quite common in 

 that part of Florida and further south, being a tall, branching, and straggling weed 

 with annual stems and perennial root, from which new shoots arise in January. It 

 blooms from February to December, and is a valuable fiber plant, the bark of both 

 stem and root being very strong, and used very generally for whip and cording pur- 

 poses. The leaves have three very conspicuous saccharine glands on the principal 

 veins toward the leaf-stem, and the plant. Dr. Neal reports, is much less sensitive to 



* The only partial success in this line is that already referred to in Note 7. 

 t See Report on Cotton Insects, Department of Agriculture, 1879, p. 89. 



