INSECTS MISTAKEN FOR ALETIA. 
353 
tinles, as at Washington, and Saint Louis, there are three generations, 
the species hibernating both as larva andimago, while in the South the 
moths are abundantly found during the winter months, and are fre- 
quently mistaken tor Aletia. The species will be readily recognized 
from the accompanying figures (Plate LXII, Fig. 5e,/), which show, also, 
the variation which we have obtained from the same batch of larva?. 
We liist reared this species from the larva in 1872, and have frequently 
obtained eggs laid in confinement by captured females. They are de- 
posited on grass leaves and upon the surface of the ground in the breed- 
ing cages, as well as upon the muslin covering the smaller breeding- 
jars. One female was observed to deposit 112 eggs. The newly hatched 
larva' are pale greenish-yellow in color and are very active, moving with 
a looping gait. The lull grown larva 1 are gra\ ish-\ ellow, marked with 
two broad, blackish, somewhat interrupted dorsal stripes. They are 
described by William Saunders in the Ca7iariian Entomoloyist for June, 
1875. Of the eggs and pupae, which have not previously been carefully 
described, we submit descriptions in the notes.* 59 
Lapiiygma frugiperda (Abbot and Smith). 
[Plate LXII, Fig. 2.] 
The larva of this insect is commonly known throughout the South as 
the "Grass Worm," and although usually noticed in moderate numbers 
eating out the wild grass between cotton rows and elsewhere, and so 
doing good rather than harm, still there occur at irregular intervals 
seasons in which it appears in enormous numbers, eats out the grass, 
'•rags" the cotton, eats the coin leaves, and utterly destroys the crops 
of the \ egetable gardens over more or less extended parts of the country. 
These destructive appearances usually occur late in the summer or in 
the fall, and tor this reason in our Third Missouri Report we gave itthe 
title of the " fall Army Worm," describing it under the scientific name 
Of Prodenia autumnalis, with two of its more marked varieties, obscura 
(Plate LXII; Fig. 2c) and fulvosa (Plate LXII: Pig. 2b). The larva is 
figured in the Missouri report just alluded to and in our annual report 
as U. S. entomologist tor 1881-^82 (Plate VII; Fig. 4). 
Although the great majority of planters distinguish between the 
" Grass Worm " and the "Cotton Worm," yet it is owing to a mistaking 
of the former for the latter that many accounts of a diversity of food- 
habit on the part of Aletia have been published. The two insects are> 
quite dissimilar in appearance, and in habit still more so. The Grass 
Worm transforms to a naked pupa beneath the surface of the ground, 
and hibernates in this condition. 
* Since this was Avritten, Prof. G. H. French has published (Papilio, Vol. IV, Nos.7 
and 8, September-October, 1884, p. 148) lengthy descriptions of all of the preparatory 
st;it ew of t his species. 
03 CONG 23 
