78 
AGRICULTURAL REPORT. 
ing efforts to escape, was finally obliged to succumb to superior num- 
bers and die as quietly as possible, when the carcass was immediately 
carried off by the captors to their nests, or, when too heavy to be 
dragged away at once, they fed upon it as it lay in the road. This 
warfare was carried on every day as long as the grass-worms prevailed, 
and no doubt their numbers were diminished in this way to a con- 
siderable extent. 
The grass-caterpillars, when in confinement, very often kill and 
devour each other ; and, when one is maimed in the least, it stands 
a very poor chance for its life. Several intelligent planters state that, 
when the grass and weeds are entirely devoured, and no other 
vegetable food is to be found, they will attack each other and feed 
upon the still living and writhing bodies of their former companions. 
One grass-caterpillar, which was kept in confinement, although fur- 
nished with an abundance of green food, actually appeared to prefer 
to feed upon other caterpillars, no matter of what kind, so long as 
their bodies were not defended by long, bristling hairs, or spines. 
The grass-caterpillar is from an inch and a half to an inch and 
three-quarters in length. A longitudinal light-brownish line runs 
down the centre, and two yellow lines along each side of the back, 
which is somewhat veined with black lines, and is of a dark color, 
marked with black spots, from each of which grows a short bristle, 
or hair. Below these yellow stripes, the sides are of a dark color, 
almost black ; beneath this, extends a light-colored line, in which the 
spiracles are placed ; the lower part of the body is of a dirty green, 
spotted with black ; the head is black, marked with two lines of a 
yellowish color, forming an angle on the top ; the body is somewhat 
hairy. This caterpillar has six pectoral, eight ventral, and two anal 
feet. 
The above description applies only to the brightest-colored speci- 
mens of the grass-worm, as they vary much in color and markings, 
some ot them being almost black, and showing indiscriminately their 
stripes. The chrysalis is brownish-black, and is formed in a cocoon of 
silk under the ground, the sand and small pebbles being so inter- 
woven with it as to cause the whole cocoon to appear like an ovoid ball 
of earth ; but it is never found webbed up in the leaves, as is the case 
with the true cotton-caterpillar, already described. The moth 
measures about an inch and one-fifth across the wings when they are 
expanded ; the upper-wings are grey, slightly clouded with a darker 
color, and a lighter spot or ring is faintly seen in the centre; the 
under-wings are of a yellowish-white, shaded with grey along the 
margin near the upper wings. 
Specimens of these caterpillars were brought to me when at Sa- 
vannah, in Georgia, and they were suspected to have injured the rice 
in that vicinity in the month of June. Colonel Whitner, of Talla- 
hassee, in his interesting communication to this Office, speaks of the 
grass-caterpillar as having stripped fields of grass, in 1845, and also 
as attacking the corn, sugar-cane and upland rice. It has likewise 
been said that an insect similar, if not identical with the grass-cater- 
pillar, destroys the leaves of the sweet potato. Thus it appears to be 
almost omnivorous, and not choice i'll its selection of food, like the 
