57 



to get early plants of these crops started there owing to the ravages 

 of cutworms. The garden had not been in grass for fifteen years, 

 but still about half of the plants were destroyed by these insects. 



In early August the spotted cutworm assumed the army -worm habit 

 in at least one locality. August 6, Prof. B. F. Koons, of the Connect- 

 icut Agricultural College at Storrs, .Conn., sent a number of living 

 cutworms of this species with the accompanying information that they 

 first attracted his attention in a large meadow, where they were tum- 

 bling into the water of a ditch, being particularly abundant along its 

 border, where they fed upon weeds, ferns, golden-rod, and other plants, 

 not cutting them, however, but eating the lower foliage. They were 

 traveling like the army worm in considerable numbers, and not feeding 

 upon oats or grasses, but upon netted-veined leaves. They riddled a 

 small plot of rhubarb on the hillside near the meadow, filling the 

 leaves full of holes, and attacked also the fruit of tomato near by. 

 They were found also in great numbers coiled about the roots of weeds 

 and in rubbish at their bases, and they were as abundant along the 

 borders of the ditch as our correspondent had ever seen the true army 

 worm, Leucania wiipuncta. The moths of this lot, which may be con- 

 sidered the second generation of larvae, began issuing about the middle 

 of August. The pupal stage during hot weather was fifteen days. 



This is the third instance known to the writer of this species assum- 

 ing the habit of traveling in armies. On page 135 of the Third Report 

 of the United States Entomological Commission, Dr. Howard states 

 that in his investigations of the true army worm (in Illinois and 

 Indiana) in 1881 this species was accompanied by large numbers of the 

 spotted cutworm in the proportion of about one of the cutworms to 

 five of the army worms. During the same year Mr. Coquillett 

 observed this cutworm in Illinois associated with the army worm in 

 the proportion of one of the former to eight or ten of the latter 

 (Eleventh Report State Entomologist of Illinois, 1882, p. 51). 



December 6, 1900, Mr. G. W. Morris, Poindexter, Va., sent speci- 

 mens of this cutworm with report that they were devouring violets 

 upon his place, eating both blooms and leaves of the plants. 



Brief mention of the occurrence of this larva on violets in September 

 and October in Illinois has been made by Messrs. Forbes and Hart 

 (Bui. GO, Univ. of 111. Agric. Exp. Sta., 1900, p. 451). 



A note on the extreme abundance of this species in many localities 

 along the north shore of Lake Ontario, where it was injurious to all 

 kinds of garden and root crops, was given by Dr. James Fletcher in 

 an article published in the Thirty-first Annual Report of the Entomo- 

 logical Society of Ontario for 1900 (1901 p. 68). The generation of 

 larvae found during July was in the year 1900 — the one that did most 

 harm. It seemed to take the place in Ontario of the variegated cut- 

 worm, Avhich was injurious in the West. 



