214 THE COTTON CATERPILLAR. 
its ravages to the bolls alone and does not trouble the foliage on 
the cotton plant. The first brood of boll worms always appears 
in the corn fields, where it feeds on the silk and leaves of the 
more tender corn until it is large enough to attack the tough cotton 
pods, eating into them just as the apple worm eats into the apple. + 
But the insect which we dread, and which we call the caterpillar * 
(Fig. 40, moth and caterpillar), eats only the leaves on the cotton 
plant. The boll worm ` 
sometimes attacks the 
long-staple cotton, but 
only as an attendant on 
the caterpillar, complet- ` 
ing what the latter had 
begun. We have twice 
had our cotton fields 
eaten out completely 
since the war and conse- 
quently have been com- ` 
worm. pelled to learn something 
about the habits of the caterpillar. In appearance and size it is 
at first like the canker worm, but towards the latter part of Octo- 
ber it becomes much larger and more active. 
In one respect it differs from the canker-worm—when you touch 
one, it jumps away three or four inches; but ordinarily it crawls 
about from leaf to leaf. When first dis- 
covered — about the last of July—it is 
very small, not much larger than the 
head of a pin and was eating holes 
through the leaves of the tenderest. cot- 
ton from the under side. It soon disap- 
peared and in about two weeks we found 
a new brood which increased in size and 
numbers much more rapidly than the 
first. This second brood was confined to 
spots in the fields, eating all the foliage wherever it began. After 
eating for about two weeks they began to roll up in the cotton 
leaves in the form of cocoons and shortly turned into moths, which 
_ flew in every direction over the fields and deposited their eggs for 
Fig. 39. 
Fig. 40, 
L Fo an account tof this caterpillar, the Anomis xylina, see the “Guide to the Study 
of Insects,” experience with it in Alabama. 
