55 



thorax is brown and the abdomen dull gra3 r , a little darker than the 

 hind-wings, which are sometimes strongly infuscated on the outer 

 margins and moderately distinctly veined. The illustration represents 

 a male. 



TJie egg. — The eggs may be laid singly in rows, or in compact lay- 

 ers, sometimes to the number of 200 or more, and when first deposited 

 are nearly transparent, showing the green of the leaf beneath. They 

 are nearly hemispherical in form, and strongly ribbed like many of 

 the Noctuidae. In consistency they are firm and elastic; each egg is 

 about 9 mm in diameter, or a little more than a third of an inch. 



The larva. — The young larva, when first hatched, has been described 

 as about 0.04 of an inch (l mm ) in length, nearly white in color, and 

 thickl} r covered with black pilosities. From these pilosities proceed 

 black hairs, which also ornament the head and thoracic shield. The 

 remaining molts have been described as follows by Prof. A. J. Cook 

 (Report Michigan Experiment Station, 1890, p. 108): 



After the first molt they were four millimeters (one tenth of an inch) long. A few 

 were still white with eight pilosities to each ring and otherwise as before, while most 

 were now plainly striped with green and white. There is a dorsal white line and two 

 others near together on each side just above the spiracles. The pilosities are less dis- 

 tinct, the hairs white, and the head or under side is white or greenish-white. After 

 the second molt they are one centimeter, or four-tenths of an inch, long. They are now 

 lined with white, and dirty white, or light gray. A wide white stripe on each side con- 

 tains the brown spiracles in its upper margin, a narrower white stripe extends along 

 the back, while one still narrower divides the distance between the dorsal and lateral 

 stripe about equally. The head and under surface are dirty white. In some speci- 

 mens the gray is quite darkened by minute black spots, and the lateral stripes are 

 pinkish. The hairs and tubercles bearing them are still more obscure, and as in the 

 previous stages extend all around the body. After the next, or fourth molt, the 

 length is nearly or quite two centimeters. The general appearance is as in the last 

 stage except that the white lines are less clearly denned, while the gray lines are 

 more thickly set with dark olivaceous specks which really make a dark line just 

 above the spiracles. 



The mature larva is illustrated at figure 18, b. In this stage it 

 measures, when fully extended, about one and one-half inches, and 

 five-sixteenths of a millimeter in width. It is usually an inconspicuous 

 gray or brown in color, sometimes whitish, with strong green or olive- 

 brown tints, and the last three or four, and sometimes all, of the 

 abdominal segments are marked with diverging, velvet-black lines, as 

 shown in the figure. 



The jmjpa is of the usual mahogany brown color of most Noctuid 

 pupse and measures about three-fourths of an inch in length and one- 

 fourth in diameter. The anal segment terminates in two outwardly 

 curved spines on each side of which there are two shorter curved 

 spines or bristles, and on the ventral surface, just above the insertion 

 of the larger spines, are two similar, still shorter, curved processes. 



