35 



CDT-WOBUS. THEIR PltPA STATE. STRIPED CUT-WORM DBSCRIBED. 



sufficiently to bide itself from view. It is also much more irritable, more 

 ferocious and combative. If two of tliem are enclosed in a box togetber 

 and one crowds against or attempts to crawl over the other, it spitefully 

 resents this freedom and snappishly tries to bite the intruder. 



These Yellow-headed worms continued to cut ofl' the corn for more than 

 a week after the others had disappeared, remaining out till about ihe close 

 of the first week in July. 



When the Cut-worm is done feeding it crawls down into the earth to the 

 depth of three or four inches, where it is not liable to be disturbed by any 

 other worms inhabiting the superficial soil. It here doubles itself together 

 in the shape of a horse-shoe, and by turning aro'.uid and around in the 

 same spot, presses the soil outward {rom around it, compacting it into a 

 thin brittle kind of shell which the wet from any showers of rain 

 ■will not penetrate, forming a large, oval cavity with a smooth sur- 

 face on its inside. In this cavity the worm lies motionless and be- 

 comes contracted in size and of a stiff and more firm consistency. The 

 forward part of its body becomes swollen, more and more, till at 

 length the skin bursts open upon the back and the hard shining yellow 

 shell of the pupa begins to protrude from this opening. By slight sudden 

 starts or shrugs, the skin is gradually thrown off and remains in a shrivel- 

 led mass at the end of the insect, which is now in its pupa form, without 

 any mouth or feet, its shape being that of an elongated egg of a shining 

 chestnut yellow color, thrice as long as thick, but only half as long as was 

 the full grown worm. This pupa or chrysalis lies quiet and motionless in 

 its oval cell under the ground for about four weeks, when its outer shell- 

 like covering cracks open upon the fore part of the back, and the moth or 

 perfect insect crowds itself out from it, and upward through the loose earth 

 to the surface. The first moth from the Striped Cut-worm presented itself 

 to us this year on the evening of the sixth of July, and upon the evening 

 of the tenth the same moths had become exceedingly numerous. The 

 worms had been so diversified in the depth of their color and the distinct- 

 ness of their stripes, that I had confidently expected to see a similar diver- 

 sity in the moths which they produced. I was, therefore, greatly surprised 

 to find the latter remarkably uniform, no differences occurring to my obser- 

 vation this season that were susceptible of being described as varieties. 



Now that we have ascertained the moth of this, one of our most common 

 Cut-worms, it is important that we give the most accurate description of 

 it and of the worm from which it comes, that we are able to draw up from 

 the numerous specimens we have examined, and thus place this species on 

 record so distinctly that it may ever hereafter be readily recognized. 



The Striped Cut-worm, as we have heretofore termed it, is a cylindrical 

 worm, usually about an inch in length M-hen disturbed beside the severed 

 plants in our gardens and corn fields, and upwards of an inch and a quar- 

 ter when it is fully grown. Its ground color is dirty white or ash gray, 

 occasionally slightly tinged with yellowish; the top of its neck shining 

 black, with three white or pale longitudinal stripes; a whitish line along 

 the middle of its back between two dark ones; on each side three dark stripes 



