TOBACCO-WOnU. ITS HABITS. TUB POPA. DKPTn OP ITS INTEHUENT. 



the plants in the greatest numbers. They move about but little during the 

 daytime, and being of the same green color as the stalks and leaves, they 

 are difficult to discover. Usually, the presence of one of these worms upon 

 our tomatoes is first indicated to us by the large black pellets of excrement 

 which it drops, some of which frequently lodge in the forks of the stalks or 

 adhere to the glutinous hairs of the plant. These pellets aie of a short 

 cylindrical form, and deeply grooved lengthwise; and the worm, as if to 

 guard against its presence being betrayed hereby, when it is crawling 

 along the stalks, if it chances to come to one of these pellets, it pauses and 

 takes it up in its jaws and drops it to the ground. 



When the worm is grown to its full size it leaves the plant on which it 

 has hitherto been living, sometimes wandering away to a distance from it, 

 and roots down into the ground to the depth of some inches below the 

 surface. It here becomes quiescent, and casting off its larva skin it 

 appears in its pupa or chrysalis form. By this change it is diminished a 

 third in its size and is now of an oval form, four times as long as thick, 

 and covered with a hard crustaceous shell of a glossy bright chestnut color. 

 This pupa of the tobacco-worm is particularly curious from having its for- 

 ward end prolonged on one side into a long slender limb which is bent 

 backwards, reaching the middle of the body, where its end touches and 

 is firmly soldered to the surface, thus forming a kind of loop resembling 

 the handle to a pitcher — this being the sheath, in which the tongue is 

 enclosed, which in the perfect insect becomes developed to such a remark- 

 able length. In this state the insect remains tinougli the winter and 

 spring. It is currently stated that it lies so deep in the ground as to be 

 beyond the reach of the winter's frost, but this point requires further inves- 

 tigation, for fr(!quently in harvesting potatoes this chrysalis is disinterred, 

 lying only a few inches below the surface. Every laborer who has been 

 much employed in digging potatoes, and every boy who has been assigned 

 the task of picking them up, will recollect having noticed it, the curious 

 loop or pitcher-like handle on one bide having particularly drawn his 

 attention to it. In tiie garden, also, where tomatoes have been grown, I 

 have met with it only slightly underground. The subsoil, moreover, 

 beneath where it is loosened by the plow, is in most situations so compact 

 and hard that it would be f» very arduous labor for the worm to penetrate 

 downward in it twelve inches or more; and for the moth, after it comes out 

 from the pupa shell, to force itself up such a distance through this compact 

 subsoil, would seem to be quite impossible. We know, furthermore, that 

 the pupa; of the other Icpidoptera, several of them equalling this in size, 

 pass the winter, some in cocoons elevated above the ground, others 

 upon the surface, others slightly under the surface, where they one and all 

 become congealed by the winter's cold without impairing their vitality. I 

 am tiierefore led to conclude that the repealed instances in which I have 

 q)et with this pupa lying but a few inches within the loose surface soil 

 were not abnormal, but that this is the depth to which it is commonly 

 buried; and that previous accounts, which represent it as lying deep in 

 the ground, beyond the reach of the frost, are erroneous. When tho 



