MIGRATIONS OF THE MOTHS HIBERNATION. 
15 
orations is, of course, fewer, and will vary according to the date of the 
incoming: of moths from the farther south, and according to other cir- 
cumstances. The generations are not only fewer, therefore, but more 
easily separated and defined. 
MIGRATIONS. 
Many persons, noting the short and clumsy though rapid and darting 
flight of the moth, when disturbed during the day-time, get the idea that 
it is incapable of extended flight. But it has great power of wing, and 
its migrating habits are abundantly attested. It has been observed in 
numbers, far out at sea, and captured In autumn off the coast of New 
England, around Chicago and around Buffalo — the species being identi- 
fied by competent entomologists like Packard, Burgess, Grote, and 
Westeott. We have known it to do considerable injury during Septem- 
ber to peaches in Kansas, and to ruin acres of cantelopes during the 
same month as far north as Baeine, AVis. That it is aided in these dis- 
tant flights by favoring winds there can be no doubt, but that it does 
not depend on them for dispersion is equally certain. A factor to be 
considered, also, in connection with these northern appearances, is the 
probable existence of one or more northern food-plants. 15 
Dr. D. L. Phares records the destruction, by the worms, of cotton the 
first year planted, eighty miles from any point where cotton had been 
grown before; while Mr. II. P. Bee (see letter in Appendix) shows that 
they appeared in Mexico on cotton planted two hundred miles from any 
other fields. Numerous similar cases might be mentioned. 
The migrating habit is common to many insects and other animals, 
but is almost always associated with excessive multiplication. Such 
is likewise the case with Aletia, as the observations of past years 
have clearly shown. So long as the worms are not numerous enough 
to materially riddle the cotton, the moths produced from them busy 
themselves with ovipositing in the neighborhood where they were born, 
spreading only comparatively short distances on all sides; but when- 
ever the cotton is well M ragged/' then the moths acquire the migrating 
habit and appear in numbers everywhere — in town and village, and at 
lights far away from cotton-fields. The time of year when this migrating 
habit is acquired varies, but it is rarely till after the third genera- 
tion of worms, or the latter part of June and fore part of July in South 
Texas; while it is most pronounced during the autumn months. At 
such times the moths may be noticed, during cloudy days, starting off 
by rapid flight and ascending high in the air till lost to sight; and the 
contrast between this movement and the darting and hiding of the 
normal day-flight is quite striking to any one who has witnessed it. 
HIBERNATION. 
No question connected with the Cotton Worm has given rise to more 
speculation than that of the hibernation of the insect, and this fact at 
once finds its explanation in the difficulty that surrounds the subject. 
