[90] REPORT 4, UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
Kirkwood, Miss., September 5, 1879. 
1. The cultivation of cotton, I am informed, was coeval with the settlement of the 
country. I settled here in 1845 and found cotton cultivated all over the county. 
2. The Boll Worm has been an annual visitor since the first cotton was planted, 
destroying more or less, according to the character of the season. Though I had 
heard of the visitation of Aletia previously, I first observed it in 1858, though it did 
but little damage to crops that year. 
3. It is more dreaded after a mild winter, but its visitations do not seem to be 
influenced more by one than the other ; that is, they are as often seen after one as the 
other. 
4. Cannot say that a wet season favors its multiplication. They are never developed 
during hard rains or continued wet spells. Their propagation seems to depend upon 
showery weather creating atmospheric dampness, and a high mean temperature. Dry 
weather is unfavorable to their production or increase. 
5. The last week in July is the earliest period. Have often found, what is here 
called the grass worm, as early as May, eating both grass and cotton. 
6. Its first appearance, in my observation, is along hill-sides where moisture is 
retained, and hollow spots on upland, just where in plowing after a season the plow 
encounters the wettest soil ; such spots as generally produce the most luxuriant cotton. 
7. About the middle of last November, and after several severe frosts, I found many 
chrysalides, of the last brood, on bare cotton stalks, living and lively. I placed these 
with others, previously brought in, in glass jars and boxes with earth and rubbish, 
exposed to outer air. Between the 15th and '^Oth of January, after a severe freeze of 
several days' continuance in December and January, a number of living moths came 
forth, in a warm spell then prevailing, but soon died. On the 6th of February the whole 
lot of chrysalides were then examined, when many were found to be dead and dried 
up, others again look plump, which were inadvertently thrown away, and from the 
cases of others several varieties of living ichneumon flies were taken alive. One of 
them filling the case, and of normal size, was sent to Professor Riley and pronounced 
by him to be " Pimpla conquisitor" a parasite of Aletia. My impression now is that 
had they been left undisturbed the living moths would have issued forth this spring 
from a few. 
I do not think the moth can survive the winter, as in its natural state and in con- 
finement it is so short-lived in the summer, and my conclusion is that though it may 
be retarded in its transformations in our climate by cool weather, it was not designed 
by nature to hibernate in any of its phases, but is the creature of a semi-tropical cli- 
mate, where it is pereunial and completes the cycle of its existence uninterruptedly. 
It has followed cotton, its favorite food, into our temperate climate, has become in- 
digenous, but has been subjected to abnormal changes, and only appears in large 
numbers during those periods when our climate assumes for a time a semi-tropical 
aspect. 
Many of the moths leave their cases late in the fall, and many eggs as well as chrys- 
alides are caught by the frost upon the cotton stalks and must necessarily fall to the 
ground with the detritus of the plant, and where there is much vegetable matter, as 
is the case in our fresh lands, and from the decomposition going on, would be well 
protected against frost. What, goes with the moth, unless it dies, is a mystery, as I 
have rummaged everywhere without success, and in spite of rewards c tie red can hear 
of none from one season to the next. The general opinion is that they die out. 
As the egg of the Aphis, a much more insignificant insect, but one greatly affecting 
ootton, is known to survive the winter, by analogy I do not see why the egg of Aletia 
may not likewise survive. The one, Aphis, is deposited on the stalk, and the other, 
Aletia, on the leaf; both go to the ground. Aphis appears almost eoetaneously wirh 
ootton under its appropriate law, and why may not Aletia appear later from its ovum 
under its appropriate law ? 
8. Starling and a species of gregarious blackbird : ichneumon flies, and also a small, 
velvety-looking caterpillar, black, with two lateral yellow stripes. 
I'. Poisoned sweets near lights for the destruction of the moths were tried here many 
yean ago. and with some success. It was soon abandoned on account of the time and 
trouble, as well as expense, and has never been repeated. A moth-lamp attracted 
attention a few years since about Canton, but that, too, has dickered out. 
10. Light would prove far more attractive than the sweet. 
11. I know of no Mower which attracts them. 
12. Nothing. 
1"). As we usually, in fact invariably, see the worm before we see or hear of the 
moth, the aim would be to destroy the second brood, and this could be best done by 
patting out lights and sweetened poisons to attract the moths. 
I will here reiterate what has been submitted in previous correspondence, that the 
propagation of the worms in destructive numbers is the result of imprudent tillage, 
and that by plowing wet land we hasten their production by an artificial process 
Which good husbandry would teaot) US to avoid. He who will run his plows only 
