28 REPORT, 4, UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
Washington, Red River, and Jackson Parishes all sustained great loss. 
In Mississippi many of the central and southern counties were devas- 
tated, the more northern part of the State enjoying comparative immu- 
nity. We quote from the Monthly Report of the Department of Ag- 
riculture for September, 1872, as to the state of affairs in Alabama: 
Our Angnst returns from Alabama foreshadowed an extensive visitation of the cot- 
too caterpillar, which, as our September reports show, was fully and painfully realized. 
In some places the boll-worm vied with the cotton- worm in its destructive influence. 
Reports of either or both of these pests come from Macon, Pike, Marengo, Conecuh, 
Perry, Montgomery, Crenshaw, Russell, Fisk, Calhonn, Chambers, Butler, Autauga, 
Dallas, Wilcox, and Tuscaloosa Cotmties. In Crenshaw the fields were denuded of 
foliage. In Calhoun the crop piospect was reduced 25 per cent, in five days. In 
Autauga the roads, woods, and wells were full of army and boll worms. In Wilcox 
the caterpillars, after stripping the cotton-plant of its leaves, al tacked the bolls, eat- 
ing the smaller ones and killing the larger ones by gnawing around them. In Peny 
the crop was cut down to half an average after August 20. In Conecuh the destruc- 
tion was almost complete, as it also was in Russell. All through the cane-brake region 
the loss was very severe, Butler, Clark, Wilcox, Dallas, Perry, and Tuscaloosa report 
a loss of one-half; Pike, Bibb, Hale, Calhoun, and Limestone a loss of one-fourth or 
over. 
In Florida also the loss was very great; Suwannee, Leon, Taylor, 
Columbia, Orange, Jackson, and Jefferson Counties all lost from 50 to 
75 per cent, of their crops, while Clay County lost 33 per cent. Nearly 
every cotton-growing county in Georgia and South Carolina was visited 
sooner or later, but the losses were not great compared with those of 
Florida and Alabama. The worms were also remarkably widespread 
and abundant in Xorth Carolina, although not particularly injurious. 
They also appeared in southern Arkansas. 
In the whole history of the Cotton Worm in the United States, froia 
1793 down to the present time, it is doubtful whether 18^3 was ever 
equalled (certainly never exceeded) in the loss occasioned by worms. 
Throughout the whole extent of the cotton belt hardly a plantation, 
escaped, and in many cases the crop was a total loss. In many localities 
the caterpillar made its appearance for the first time, and has not since 
been reported. There must have been a very extensive hibernation of 
the moths, for as early as the latter part of May the worms had appeared 
in sufficient numbers to be reported from Florida, southern Georgia, 
Alabama, Mississippi, and Texas. The appearance of the destructive 
brood at the end of June was extensively reported, and the localities are 
of great interest as bearing upon the subject of centers of hibernation. 
They are as follows: Decatur County, Georgia; Liberty. Leon, Jackson, 
Gadsden, Suwannee, and Columbia Counties, Florida ; Clarke, Wilcox, 
Dallas, Tuscaloosa, Barbour, and Saint Clair Counties, Alabama; Wil- 
kinson, Marion, and Jasper Counties, Mississippi; Tangipahoa, West 
Feliciana, Concordia, Rapides, and Carroll Parishes, Louisiana; and 
Atascosa, Austin, and Galveston Counties, Texas. 
It will be unnecessary to go through the list of States specifying 
