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Report of the State Entomologist. 



205 



or from the sides of the box to which they were attached, by slipping a 

 piece of paper underneath them, from which they could be quietly 

 dropped in the cyanide bottle. If alarmed, they attempted escape by 

 running rather than flight. 



The form, size and general appearance of the moth are shown in 

 Figure 17. Its general ground color is a uniform brownish-gray, but 

 individuals differ greatly in color, a large number being found having 

 the costal region of the forewings nearly black while the rest of the 

 wing is yellowish-brown. Others have the front of the wings blackish, 

 gradually shading into the usual brownish-gray. A variety is men- 

 tioned by Riley in which the costal region is of a dull golden-buff 

 color, but this does not appear in the large brood reared by me, nor 

 have I met with it in ample collections of the species abroad. 



An Injurious Species. 

 The variegated cut-worm is regarded as one of the most injurious 

 of its class, from its numbers, its great voracity and the broad range 

 of its food. It apparently will attack almost any field-crop that it 

 may find convenient for its operations, and when these are not at hand, 

 it as readily feeds on grasses and weeds. In cold-frames, it has been 

 quite destructive to lettuce. In conservatories it has been very inju- 

 rious to smilax, Myrsiphyllum asparagoides, eating off the softer parts 

 and especially the tops of the plants. In its attack on cabbage, it 

 has imitated the habits of some of the boring species, by penetrating 

 directly into the head. In Kansas, in 1885, it was very injurious to 

 clover and timothy in Johnson, Meade and Douglass counties — in the 

 latter stripping off the leaves of the clover and cutting off the heads 

 of timothy early in June (Professor Snow, in Rept. Kansas St. Bd. of 

 Agriculture for June 1885, p. 6). 



Its Food-plants. 



In confinement it has been fed on knot grass, corn, leaves of peach, 

 apple, strawberry, willow, eupatorium, tips of grapevine, plantain, etc. 

 Kaltenbaoh states that in Europe it feeds on Stellaria [chickweed], 

 Litorella, Plantago [plantain], and Rumex [dock, sorrel]. Rouast credits 

 it with feeding on roots of grains, under the lucernes and trefoils, 

 Gentranthus ruber, Plantago, Rumex, Daucus [carrot], and Garduus. He 

 quotes Milliere as saying that it does not eat roots but only leaves. 



A Double-brooded Species. 

 Professor Riley remarks (p. 298 of Rept. Comm. Agricul. for 1884) 

 that his St. Louis notes (given) of eggs of the species hatched from 

 April ninth to May twenty-fourth, and moths emerged from June fifth to 

 July fifth, "indicate at least two annual generations, with a possi- 

 bility of three." In my collections at sugar, at Schenectady, N. Y., in 



