806 
ANNUAL EEPORT OF NEW TORE 
CUT-WORMS* HAT* NEVER TET BEEN INVESTIGATED. 
way of destroying the grubs in corn and flax?” No answer to this in¬ 
quiry, of sufficient importance for publication, was received. 
But, although these Cut-worms have always been such a formidable foe 
in this country, against 'which the cultivators of the soil have had to con¬ 
tend, they have not, down to the present day, been subjected to any care¬ 
ful scientific examination. It was formerly supposed they were all of but 
one kind, one species of insect. In our day it has been ascertained that 
they are of several different kinds, and that they are bred from a particular 
group or family of millers or moths, of a dark color, which fly about in the 
night time and remain at restand hid from our observation during the day- 
most of them belonging to the genus named Agrotis by naturalists. But 
the observations which have been made upon these Cut-worms have been 
so hasty and superficial, that, when we see one of these worms cutting off 
the young corn in our fields or the cabbage plants in our gardens, we are 
unable to give it its exact name; we are unable to say what particular 
species of miller or moth it is which has produced that worm. 
All that has yet been done towards a scientific investigation of this sub¬ 
ject may be narrated in a few words. 
Upwards of forty years ago, Mr. Brace, of Litchfield, Ct., in a short arti¬ 
cle published in the first volume of Silliman’s Journal, gave what he evi¬ 
dently regarded as a sufficient elucidation of thjs matter. It appears that 
in a patch of ground planted with cabbages, where the worms had been 
numerous, he found their pup® to be common, lying a few inches below the 
surface, just after the worms had disappeared. From some of these pup® 
he obtained the miller or moth. In the article alluded to, he merely des¬ 
cribes this miller as being the insect which produces the Cut-worm, naming 
it the Phalena devastator or the Devastating miller. As he supposed all the 
Cut-worms were of one kind, he gives no description of the worm from 
which this miller is produced. And thus it remains unknown to this day 
what the characters and appearance of the worm are which belongs to this 
miller which Mr. Brace described. 
Some ten years after this, Dr. Harris, one season, gathered a number of 
full grown cut-worms from different situations, to breed the moths from 
them; but what is most surprising* he took no notes of the differences in 
the appearance of these worms. He obtained from them four* different 
moths in addition to the one which Mr. Brace had previously obtained. These 
he names and describes, but is unable to give any account of the worms 
which belong to either one of these species. 
In the Second Report which I presented to this Society, I gave very exact 
figures of the miller which Mr. Brace described, and of two others of the 
most cohnnon millers of our country belonging to the same group; and I 
also described five of the cut-worms which I had noticed as being common 
kinds in our cornfields and gardens. Finally, in my Third Report 1 was 
able to give an account of one of our cut-worms, and the moth which was 
raised from it. 
And this is the posture in which this subject now stands. Seven of tho 
moths or millers of our country, which produce cut-worms, have been name 
