328 REPORT 4, UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
The new spaper announcements of the investigation we began in 1878 
were very numerous, but no article worthy of note appeared before 
September, wheD, in the Atlanta Constitution, we suggested a proba- 
bility, which we soon afterwards proved to be a fact, that the moths 
feed upon the nectar secreted by theffoliar glands of the cotton plant. 
During 1878 and 1879 the literature is confined principally to the 
goings and comings and work of the agents of the Department of Agri- 
culture and of the Entomological Commission. In May, 1879, how- 
ever, we read a paper on ''The Migrations and Hibernation of AJetia 
argillacea" before the ^National Academy of Sciences, in which we gave 
the proof which had been collected in favor of the hibernation of the 
moths. Abstracts of this paper were published in Science Neics for 
June 1, in the Scientific American of June 14, and elsewhere. 
In August of the same year, we also read a paper before the American 
Association for the Advancement of Science, entitled "The Cotton 
Worm in the United States," and devoted principally to disproving the 
migration theory as put forth by Grote, and also announcing some of the 
recent discoveries resulting from the investigation. In addition to 
these two papers, we had, in July, delivered a lecture on the Cotton 
Worm before the Mobile Cotton Exchange, which was published in the 
Mobile Register for July 9, and afterwards extensively copied throughout 
the South. In this paper will be found the first published suggestion 
of the great influence which parasites and other insect enemies of Ale- 
tia exercise on the appearance of the worms upon low grounds, and the 
part they play in the well-known abundance of the worms during wet 
as compared with dry weather. 
In January, 1880, was recommenced the publication of the American 
Entomologist, after a lapse of nine years, and the volume for that year 
(Vol. Ill) contains much information upon Aletia and other cotton in- 
sects, derived from our own observations and those of our assistants. 
January 28 appeared, from the Interior Department, Bulletin 3, 
United States Entomological Commission, by C. V. Riley, entitled " The 
Cotton Worm : Summary of its Natural History, with an Account of 
its Enemies, and the best Means of controlling it; being a Report of 
Progress of the Work of the Commission." This is a pamphlet of one 
hundred and forty-four pages, with one colored plate and some eighty- 
four woodcuts. It was the most complete treatise which had been pub- 
lished up to that date, and it contained much new matter. Over sixty 
pages are devoted to a consideration of remedies. 
In May, 1880, a few unbound and incomplete copies of a more elab- 
orate volume on the same subject, by the Department of Agriculture, 
were sen 1 to some members of Congress. It is called "Report upon 
Cotton [n sects," and the first two hundred and eighty-four pages are 
devoted to an account of Aletia. The work was not completed or dis- 
tributed until the following August. This volume is published under 
the name of J. H. Comstock, though it really consists of the first year's 
