6 



pests. While the cutworms as a group are generally held in check by 

 very efficient parasites, on account of their great reproductive pow- 

 ers and the wide range of their food plants they are seasonally very 

 destructive, especially in newly broken or poorly cultivated fields, 

 when a dearth of food compels them to migrate in numbers. The 

 winter months, when the parasites are numerically at a low ebb and 

 the reviving vegetation gives the cutworms an impetus to increase, 

 are usually the season of cutworm activity and widespread destruc- 

 tion of crops. 



Caradrina reclusa is the species most commonly found in the 

 tobacco fields in Hawaii (fig. 1). This is a recently introduced 

 species, not listed in the Fauna Hawaiiensis. According to Swezey, 

 it was first noticed in numbers in 1906, although Perkins had taken 



Fig. 1. — Caradrina reclusa, a cutworm common in tobacco fields: a, Larva; 6, pupa; c, moth. (Original.) 



specimens a few years previous to 1906. Its habitat is given as Nil- 

 giris, Ceylon, Borneo, and Fiji, and it has probably come to Hawaii 

 from the last-named locality. 



A full account of its life history is given by Swezey/ from which the 

 following data are taken: 



The eggs are not laid in a mass or cluster, but are scattered around 

 singly or in small numbers; on the surface of grass leaves they are 

 sometimes laid in rows; they are also at times placed on any hard 

 surface. One moth in captivity laid 216 eggs. It died after four 

 days. 



The egg is hemispherical, with the flattened surface next the leaf; 

 it is ribbed meridianally with about 30 ribs, 10 of which reach the 

 upper pole; there are also slight cross ridges between the ribs; at the 



i Proc. Haw. Ent. Soc., 2 (1908), No. 1, p, 3. 



