[102] REPORT 4, UNITED STATES ENTOMOLOGICAL COMMISSION. 
States, and in this paper the fact of its hibernation, principally under the shelter of 
rank wire-grass, is established from observations and experiments made during the 
winter and spring of 1881-2. The moth has been taken at Archer, Fla., during 
every winter month until the early part of March, when it begau to disappear, but 
not until eggs were found deposited. The first brood of worms was found of all sizes 
during the latter part of the same month on rattoon cotton, while chrysalides and 
fresh moths were obtained during the early part of April. 
"The fact thus established has this important bearing: 
"Whereas upon the theory of annual invasion from some exotic country there was 
no incentive to winter or spring work looking to the destruction of the moths, there 
is now every incentive to such action as will destroy it either by attracting it during 
mild winter weather by sweets, or by burning the grass under which it shelters. It 
should also be a warning to cotton-growers to abandon the slovenly method of cul- 
tivation which leaves the old cotton-stalks standing either until the next crop is 
planted or long after that event; for many planters have the habrt of planting the 
seed. in a furrow between the old rows of stalks. The most careful recent researches 
all tend to confirm the belief that Gossypium is the only plant upon which the worm 
can feed in the South ; so that in the light of the facts presented there is all the 
greater incentive to that mode of culture which will prevent the growth of rattoon 
cotton, since it is questionable whether the moth will survive long enough to perpet- 
uate itself upon newly sown cotton except for the intervention of the rattoon cotton."' 
Note 13 (p. 13). — These observations have been made more particularly upon the 
Army Worm (Leucania anipuncta) and the Rocky Mountain Locust (Caloptenus 8j)retus), 
and bear, of course, upon the successive hatching within the limits of hibernating 
regions rather than upon the northward spread of the insects outside of these limits. 
(See Eighth Missouri Entomological Report, p. 47, and First Report United States 
Entomological Commission, p. 232.) 
Note 14 (p. 13). — Dr. Phares is the only writer who has, so far as we can learn, re- 
corded as many as six generations from July 6, 18b9, tijl frost. — Itwal Carolinian, i, 
p. 695. 
Note 15 (p. 15). — In reference to this subject, we quote the following on the pos- 
sible food-plants, published by us in the American Naturalist for April, 1882, pp. 327- 
328: "One of the most interesting characteristics of the Cotton Worm is that it is 
so strictly confined to cotton as its food-plant. All attempts hitherto made to dis- 
cover additional food-plants have proved futile, nor have we been able to ever make 
it feed successfully on other plants allied to Gossypium.* We have, however, long 
felt that there must be some other wild plant or plants upon which the species 
can exist, and this belief has been all the stronger since it was demonstrated two 
years ago from observations made by Dr. P. R. Hoy that the larva may occur in 
Wisconsin, and, consequently, out of the range of the cotton belt.t We have given 
special directions to those in any way connected with the Cotton Worm investigation 
to search for such additional food-plants, but so far no additional food-plant has been 
discovered. Last November we received from Dr. J. C. Neal, of Archer, Fla., specimens 
of a plant with eggs and newly-hatched larva' which he believed to be those of Aletia, 
but wh^ch belong to an allied species — the Anomis erosa Guen. The plant proved to 
be one of the Malvaceae ( Urena lobata Linn.), which is reported as quite common in 
that part of Florida and further south, being a tall, branching, and straggling weed 
with annual stems and perennial root, from which new shoots arise in January. It 
blooms from February to December, and is a valuable fiber plant, the bark of both 
stem and root being very strong, and used very generally for whip and cording pur- 
poses. The leaves have three very conspicuous saccharine glands on the principal 
veins toward the leaf-stem, and the plant, Dr. Neal reports, is much less sensitive to 
* The only partial success in this lino is that already referred to in Note 7. 
t See Report on Cotton Insects, Department of Agriculture, 1879, p. 89. 
