58 



LIFE HISTORY AND HABITS. 



The European food plants which have been recorded for this species 

 include Rumex (dock or sorrel), Stellaria media (chickweed), Primula 

 (primrose), Thalictrum (meadow rue), Epilobium palustre, Myosotis, 

 Verbascum, and Lamium. 



Chickweed, in the writer's experience, is the favorite food of this 

 as well as some other cutworms. Violets are quite subject to attack, 

 as are also cabbage and tomato, ferns, goldenrod, rhubarb, Lobelia, 

 Helianthus, chicory {CicTvorium intyhus), currant, celery, corn, grasses, 

 and clover. The fruit of tomato is sometimes injured. Young larvae 

 devour their own eggshells, and a larva has been seen to feed upon the 

 egg pods of locusts. 



The species frequently assumes the climbing, and, less often, what 

 is known as the army -worm habit. 



It seems probable, from what the writer has been able to learn from 

 experience and inquiry, that the larvae are rather partial to the foliage 

 of some fruit trees, since they are so frequently found in orchards, 

 but the climbing habit has been noticed only^ in a few localities. 



The life history of this species has never been fully traced, but, 

 from the observations of Messrs. Coquillett, French, and Forbes in 

 Illinois, it is evidently two-brooded, at least in the northern portion 

 of that state. The imagos of the first generation appear in May and 

 early June, and those of the second late in July and in August. It is 

 proved beyond peradventure that hibernation takes place in the larval 

 condition; probably only in this stage and not as pupa or moth. As 

 an example of development in midsummer, Professor Forbes states 

 (Sixteenth Report State Entom. 111., 1890, p. 86) that ten larvae, taken 

 from cabbage July 16, entered the earth for pupation July 25 and 

 emerged as adults August 15 to 19, these individuals having remained 

 in the earth from twenty-one to twenty -five days. Forbes has observed 

 that this species rarely appears at electric lights, an observation that 

 is borne out by the writer's experience also. 



Injury by this cutworm appears to be done chiefly by the hibernated 

 or spring generation, the larvae doing little if any appreciable damage 

 in the autumn. In Illinois larva? are said not to be particularly 

 troublesome after the first part of May. Larvae have been observed 

 in the fields in and near the District of Columbia late in November 

 and have been kept feeding in rearing cages out of doors exposed 

 to the weather as late as January, in which respect this cutworm 

 resembles Peridroma saucia, also a European importation 



NATURAL ENEMIES. 



This cutworm being one of several species which sometimes rest 

 during the day under stones, it is at such times sought out by parasitic 

 insects for the deposition of their egg^. 



