DISEASES OF THE COTTON PLANT. 
213 
young flower-bud, and had grown mucli larger. On the 
fourteenth day it, for the fifth time, shed its skin, attacked 
and ate into a young boll, and had increased to thirteen- 
twentieths of an inch in length. From this time it ate 
nothing but the inside of the boll, and on the twentieth 
day the skin was again shed, and it had grown to the 
length of an inch and one-tenth, but unfortunately died 
before completing its final change. 
These moths probably lay their eggs on some other 
plants when the cotton is inaccessible, as a young boll- 
worm was found this season in the corolla of the flower of 
a squash, devouring the pistils and stamens ; and, as there 
is a striking similarity between the boll-worm and the corn- 
worm moth, described in the Agricultural Report for 1864, 
in the appearance, food, and habits, alike in the caterpillar, 
chrysalis, and perfect state, it will perhaps prove that the 
boll-worm may be the young of the corn-worm moth, and 
that the eggs are deposited on the young boll, as the 
nearest substitute for green corn, and placed upon them 
only when the com aas become too old and hard for their 
food. 
Colonel B. A. Sorsby, of Columbus, Georgia, has bred 
both these insects, atd declares them to be the same ; and, 
moreover, when, acccrding to his advice, the corn was care- 
fully wormed on two or three plantations, the boll-worms 
did not make their appearance that season on the cotton, 
notwithstanding that, on neighboring plantations, they 
committed great ravages. 
The worms, or caterpillars, have six pectoral, eight ven- 
tral, and two anal fett, and creep along with a gradual mo- 
tion, quite unlike tin; looping gait of the true cotton cater- 
pillar, and vary mmi in color and markings, some being 
brown, while others are ahnost greea All are more or less 
