55 



The remaining publications will be mentioned later on under the 

 head of notes on distribution. 



The various accounts of the method of attack, and particularly of 

 the feeding of the larva? reported by correspondents and recorded by 

 others, do not agree in every detail. 



-EARLY APPEARANCE OF THE INSECT IX SOUTH CAROLINA. 



Through an unfortunate. oversight an earlier rearing of this perni- 

 cious webworrn was overlooked and hence not recorded. 



August 10. 1896. we received from Mr. H. M. Simons. Hayfield 

 Farm. Charleston. S. C. larva? and pupa?. Avith the statement conveyed 

 in a letter of August 6 that the species was very destructive to young 

 cabbage in that vicinity. Our correspondent had planted cabbages for 

 many years and had first noticed this insect in 1895, when only a few 

 were seen. At the time of writing it was estimated that $100 worth 

 of plants had been lost on account of the webworm. Many of our 

 correspondent's neighbors had lost all their cabbage plants, and this 

 in spite of tobacco water and Paris green, the latter applied both 

 dry and in liquid form. The moth was stated to lay its eggs on the 

 upper side of a leaf, and the young larva upon hatching entered the 

 leaf and ate between the inner and outer sheaths, working gradually 

 downward. 



Mr. N. L. Willet. Augusta. Ga.. who furnished information con- 

 cerning this species and its occurrence in his vicinity in 1898. again 

 sent specimens the present season with accompanying letter of August 

 29, and the information that it was only then being noticed by its 

 ravages in that county. Not very much harm had been done at that 

 time, and our correspondent was of the opinion that the insect was 

 later in its appearance than in the previous year. In short, it was 

 difficult at that time to find larva?, the truckers of the vicinity declaring 

 that they could not obtain the "worms" at all. 



September 12 we received another sending from Mr. Simons, with 

 the statement that the insect had done a great deal of damage to young 

 turnip plants. It was noticed that the larva in our rearing cages fed on 

 the common shepherd's purse, Bursa ( ( 'apsella) hursa-pastoris. In the 

 letter accompanying this last sending our correspondent stated that in 

 all his years of farming he had never seen such complete and utter 

 destruction of any crop as by this little insect. He wrote that it 

 attacked plants in all stages of growth; turnips just after they were 

 clear of the ground. He had lost his entire planting of cabbage, the 

 seed alone of which was worth 810. 



