84 



NOTES CN CUTWORMS. 



Order Lepidoptera. Family Noctuid^. 



The damage done by cutworms in 1888 to the crops of Illinois 

 far surpassed anything of the sort ever before recorded in the 

 State in amount and range and in the period of its continuance, 

 not the least remarkable feature of it being the fact that it was 

 due chiefly to a single species not recognized by any of our ento- 

 mologists in its larval state, and of whose habits and history noth- 

 ing whatever had been recorded. Successful breeding experiments 

 have given us the essential facts concerning this species, new to 

 economic entomology; and I take advantage of the discussion thus 

 called for, to bring together a number of miscellaneous notes of recent 

 accumulation concerning several other species of cutworms observed 

 in this State. Precise data with respect to the period of activity 

 of the various species are of especial economic importance, since 

 upon this depends the time when the crops infested by them may 

 safely be replanted. 



The unprecedented outbreak of 1888 was foreshadowed in 1887, as 

 is shown by the following field notes of an assistant, Mr. C. M 

 Weed, taken as examples of many similar observations: 



"Urbana, April 21, 1887. Cutworms are very common in grass 

 lands everywhere this spring. Collected nearly fifty here this 

 afternoon. Are especially abundant under boards along fences. 

 April 22. Cutworms very numerous under boards in pasture, 

 twenty-three under a single fence board. Collected two hundred 

 and fifty in three hours." 



"Carterville, Williamson county. May 10, 1887. Corn cutworms 

 doing serious injury. All of one species. [This proved to be the 

 same as that the most destructive the following year, repeatedly 

 bred by us to the imago of Agrofis inorrisoniana, Riley.] Ate 

 everything in one garden: beans, sweet potatoes, five hundred 

 strawlxMry plants, onions, corn, (^tc. Twenty acres of oats also 

 destroyed." 



From Waynesville, DeWitt county, a fanner wrote me May 18, 

 1887, that cutworms had cut off his potato vines, water-melons, 

 and musk-m(^lons; and at Lh'bana, May 81, we noticed cutw^orins 

 yet woi king on the c-orn, most of ihem full grown, but occasionnl 

 HpecimeiiH much smaller. 



