CUT-WORMS. 443 



The habits of our cut-worms appear to be exactly the 

 same as those of the European Agrotidians. It is chiefly 

 during the months of June and July that they are found to 

 be most destructive. Whole corn-fields are sometimes laid 

 waste by them. Cabbage-plants, till they are grown to a 

 considerable size, are very apt to be cut off and destroyed by 

 them. Potato-vines, beans, beets, and various other culinary 

 plants, suffer in the same way. The products of our flower- 

 gardens are not spared ; asters, balsams, pinks, and many 

 other kinds of flowers, are often shorn of their leaves and 

 of their central buds, by these concealed spoilers. Several 

 years ago I procured a considerable 

 number of cut-worms (Fig. 220) in 

 the months of June and July. Some 

 of them were dug up among cabbage- 

 plants, some from potato-hills, and others from the corn- 

 field and the flowerrgarden. Though varying in length 

 from one inch and a quarter to two inches, they were fully 

 grown, and buried themselves immediately in the earth with 

 which they were supplied. They were . all thick, greasy- 

 looking caterpillars, of a dark ashen-gray color, with a 

 brown head, a blackish horny spot on the top of the first 

 and last rings, a pale stripe along the back, and several 

 minute black dots on each ring. They were soon changed 

 to chrysalids, of a shining mahogany-brown color; and be- 

 tween the 20th of July and the 15th of August they came 

 out of the ground in the moth state. Much to my surprise, 

 however, these cut-worms produced five different species 

 of moths ; and, when it was too late, I regretted that they 

 had not been more carefully examined, and compared to- 

 gether before their transformation. 



The largest of these moths may be called Agrotis telifera, 

 the lance-rustic. It closely resembles Agrotis suffusa, the 

 dark sword-rustic of Europe. The fore wings are light 

 brown, shaded with dark brown along the outer thick edge, 

 and in the middle also in the female ; these wings are divided 



56* 



