STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
855 
AIIMY WORM. WHY TIIUS CALLED. 
Army worm, LeuCania unip.uncta, Haworth. (Lepidoptcra, Noctuidas.) 
stripping the leaves and severing the heads from wheat stalks, or wholly consuming the 
plants when young; worms growing to 1.50 in length, variously striped with black, yellow 
and greenish, which suddenly appear in immense numbers and keep together in a compact 
bodv. advancing in a particular direction and devastating the fields of grain and grass through 
which they pass, and then totally disappearing; producing drab colored moths 1.76wide with- 
a white dot on the middle of their fore wings and an oblique dusky streak at the tip. 
As the army worm has appeared so extensively, and excited so 
much inquiry and alarm in our country the present year, I doubt 
not an account of it will be looked for in the present report. A 
popular history and description of this insect and its habits was 
given in an address which I delivered at the annual fair of the 
State Agricultural Society, the publication of which was requested 
by a vote of the audience. As this address contains all the 
important facts known to us in relation to this insect, I present 
it in this place with but little alteration. 
This present year may be regarded as the most remarkable in 
the insects it has developed of any that has occurred in our day, 
probably the most remarkable that has ever occurred since the 
country was settled. That an insect should show itself, of such 
a threatning aspect as to arrest public notice, in the midst of the 
intense excitement of a civil war, is an event seldom il ever 
known before in history. Yet we have this year had two insects 
of this character very extensively in our land, the one but 
vaguely and the other not at all known in this country before. 
I allude to the army worm, of which the newspapers have recently 
given such frequent notices, and the aphis, which has been 
seen everywhere in our fields of grain. And I here propose to 
give a short account of the information we have now obtained 
respecting the first of these insects, the army worm. I shall aim 
to speak of it in such plain, familiar language as will serve to give 
every one a distinct and definite view of its history and habits. 
This name, “ army worm,” is given to a kind of worm which 
makes its appearance at irregular intervals, now in one place, 
then in another, coming out suddenly in immense numbers, keep¬ 
ing themselves huddled closely together like an army of soldiers, 
traveling usually in a particular direction, and devastating the 
fields of grain and grass through which they pass, and after a' 
timo suddenly disappearing. 
Wc have long been aware that this was a common insect in the 
Southern States, appearing there in one place or another almost 
every year. The public prints have repeatedly noticed the fact 
