158 
DISEASES OF THE COTTON PLANT. 
mocking-birds on a Southern plantation, will accomplish 
more in destroying insects injurious to vegetation than can 
be imagined by one who has not studied their habits, or 
watched them with attention, when busily engaged in 
searching under every lea:^ or in every fissure of the bark, 
for their insect prey. 
INSECTS FOUND UPON THE STALKS. 
The Cut-Worm. 
I have not been able this year (1855) to procure speci- 
mens of the worms which cut off the young plants early in 
the season, as I arrived in the region of cotton-fields after 
their ravages had ceased ; but, from the authority of able 
and scientific plantere, I am induced to believe that they are 
very similar in habits and appearance to many of the cut- 
worms of the gardens, which penetrate the earth close to a 
plant, and at night emerge from their retreats to gnaw it 
off at or near the ground. 
A gentleman in Florida, who had been troubled with 
this pest, informed me that a particular spot of four or five 
acres in his field had been literally thronging with cut- 
worms, so that most of the plants were either eaten off or 
destroyed, and that, finally, fearing the loss of his whole 
crop, he turned into the enclosure some twenty or thirty 
young pigs, which soon discovered the worms, rooted them 
\xp in great numbers, and fattened on the unaccustomed 
.diet. The cotton was not injured, as the pigs were too 
young to root deep enough to destroy the plants. The pigs 
remained where the worms were to be found, never troub- 
ling any other portions of the field, and their strong powers 
of scent enabled them to detect their insect prey even when 
buried in the earth. 
