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IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE Voi. XXVII, 1920 
shriveled specimens plainly “enjoying poor health.” These needed 
only to be torn open to find from one to three or four maggots, 
young tachina flies’ Adult tachina flies, with Archytas analis pre- 
dominating, but one or more smaller species being common, were 
very abundant in the fields and many of the pupse of the Army 
worms contained the larva or puparium of a tachinid, while a 
high percentage of the worms carried fly eggs on their “necks.” 
Ground beetles of several common species were very numerous 
in the fields. Harpalus compar Lee. was the predominating species 
while Calosoma calidum, often mentioned as an enemy of Army 
worms, was not infrequently found. From the abundance of 
these many natural enemies it would seem unlikely that this same 
region would suffer from Army worms during the season of 
1921. 
It is difficult to estimate the amount of loss due to the 1920 
outbreak of Army worms in our state, and not easy to say where 
the loss was greatest. It would seem that Sac and Pocahontas 
counties likely suffered most heavily altho certain regions in many 
of the counties were hard hit. It is interesting to note that Cal- 
houn county, on the southern border of this year’s outbreak, was 
the most northern county to have an Army worm outbreak in 
1919, while Des Moines county was the only county of the twenty- 
two in the southern part of the state known to have Army worm 
troubles in 1919 that had the worm again this year. Early in 
April and thereafter for two months and more adult Army worms 
could be found at lights almost every warm night. It is an 
interesting question as to whether or not these moths in southern 
Iowa are in any way related to the appearance of worms in the 
northern half of the state. 
The Variegated cutworm was not reported as a destructive 
agent to farm crops during the summer of 1920 tho from many 
parts of the state came reports of its damage to tomatoes. The 
worms after hiding in the soil by day would climb into the vines 
by night where they ate off the blossoms and young fruit or 
burrowed into the larger green ones and the ripe tomatoes. 
From these two years’ experience with Army worms and the 
closely related Variegated cutworm it is evident that poison bran 
bait will ordinarily offer an effective means of control ; that where 
the worms are traveling they may be stopped by a well constructed 
ditch, but that it is a good plan to run a row of poison bran 
along the ditch to care for the few worms that will likely find 
some means of crossing the ditch ; and that their natural enemies 
