2 



TOBACCO-WOnU. THE NORXnEnN AND SOnXHEnS SPECIES. 



with which wc have become move familiarly acquainted from seeing it so 

 frequently upon the tomato vines! ever since this vcffetablo came into 

 general cultivation in our gardens. And it has obtained the names 

 Potato-worm, Tomato-worm, and now Tobacco-worm, as it occurs r.pon one 

 or the other of these plants, most persons supposing it to bo a different 

 insect in each case. These three plants are closely related to each other, 

 all pertaining to the same Natural Order, Solanace^ and this insect feeds 

 upon each of them without appearing to manifest any preference for one 

 over the other. It feeds equally well, also, upon other species of the 

 genus Solanum, to which the potato pertains. I once met with two full- 

 grown worms upon a vine of the bittersweet (Sulamim Dulcamara) which 

 was "-rowing so distant from any potatoes that it was evident they could 

 not have strayed from that plant, but must have come from eggs which the 

 parent had laid upon this vine, knowing it to be perfectly adapted for 

 nourishing her young. It is probable that it can also nourish itself upon 

 the 'stramonium, henbane, and most other plants of this Natural Order. 



The tobacco-worm which is common at the South and such a great pest 

 to the plantations there, is a different species, but so closely like this in its 

 size colors, markings and habits, both in its larva and perfect state, that 

 the two insects were for a long time confounded together. It is now just 

 a century ago that the miller or moth of the southern tobacco worm was 

 scientifically named Sphi7uv Carolina by Linnajus; and it was fifty years 

 later in 1802, that our insect was separated as a distinct species by Mr. 

 Haworth, who gave it the name Sphinx b-macidalus, or the Five-spotted 

 Sphinx, Hubner some years afterwards giving it the name Celeus. I sup- 

 pose it to have been through an oversight that authors generally have copied 

 the original name from Mr. Haworth in its masculine form, which is evi- 

 dently an inaccuracy. Mr. Clemens, in his Synopsis of North American 

 Sphingidte, (Journal Acad. Natural Sciences, new series, vol. IV, p. 166,) 

 cites Dr. Harris as describing the Carolina in his Catalogue of North Ameri- 

 can Sphinges (Silliman's Journal, vol. XXXVI, p. 294), whereas it is clear- 

 ly the b-maculata which is there described under the name Carolina. He 

 also gives both these species as being distributed generally throughout 

 the United States. But over most of New England and New York the 

 b-macidata is the exclusive species. I have no knowledge of the Carolina 

 as occurring except in the southern sections of our State, where, and 

 throughout the middle States, the two species are found associated togeth- 

 er* whilst farther south this disappears and the Carolina alone is met with, 

 its geographical range extending onward through Mexico and the West 

 Indies, and into South America, probably as far as the tobacco grows. 



As already remarked, the two insects are closely alike both in their larva 

 and their perfect states. The worms arc of a bright green color, their skin 

 is wrinkled transversely and is commonly dotted over with white, and they 

 are both marked with a row of oblique white stripes along each side of the 

 body; but in the southern worm there are no longitudinal white streaks 

 meeting the lower ends of these oblique ones to form the V-like marks which 

 we invariably sec upon our northern worm. In their perfect state tho 



