810 
ANNUAL EEPORT OF NEW TORE 
CDT-WORUS. THE STRIPED WORM FOLLOWED BY THE LARGER YELLOW-HEADED WORM. 
were it not that it is this very act which renders this creature such a pest 
such a nuisance to us! 
As to the kinds of plants which these worms thus sever to feed upon 
them, they appear to have but little if any preferences. They relish every¬ 
thing that is young and tender and succulent. Thus they attack the corn 
the flax, the potato stalks in our fields, and in our gardens the cabbage 
plants and beans, cucumber and melon plants, beets and parsnips, and also 
the red-rood and several other weeds. Nor are they limited to herbaceous 
plants. Where a sucker starts up from the root of a tree, while it is yet 
young and tender it is liable to be severed, if one of these worms chances 
to find it. 
They appear to have no discrimination in their taste, but relish equally 
well the most acrid and bitter plants, with those which are mild and aro¬ 
matic. Thus the onion stalks in our gardens are about as liable to be cut 
off as any other plants; and I have known the acrid smart-weed to be 
severed by them. The past summer, I set out in my garden a few tobacco 
plants, that I might notice what insects would come upon this filthy weed; 
and within a few days after, one of these cut-worms gave me a very palpa¬ 
ble reminder that he would not tax me for cabbages and beans if I would 
only furnish him with what tobacco he wanted to chew. I have known a 
piece of writing paper to be partially consumed by one of these worms en¬ 
closed in a box where it became pressed with hunger. And where several 
worms are enclosed together in a box of dirt, over night, without any food, 
it is a common occurrence for the larger ones to devour the smaller ones. 
The past season, it was upon the 22d of May, in a hot bed, that I first no¬ 
ticed a plant severed by a Cut-worm; and the query at once arose, how 
could this worm get into such a close and secure place as that was ? The 
loam forming the top of the bed had been obtained from the garden; and 
it was evident this worm must have been lying in the soil there, and had 
been brought from thence, in this soil, when the bed was being made. And 
the warmth of the bed had quickened the growth of this worm and brought 
it forward in advance of all its fellows. 
Three days later, the first bean plant in the garden was found cut off by 
another of these worms; and from that time they continued to become moro 
common until about the first of June, when they were out in their full force, 
both in the fields and in the gardens. At first I supposed the worms in the 
cornfields were different from those in the gardens. But the more I exam¬ 
ined and compared them, the more assured I became that they were all of 
one species, although they varied greatly, some being pale and others dark, 
and some having very distinct stripes, whilst others had them scarcely per¬ 
ceptible. It was the same species which I named the Striped Cut-worm, in 
the Transactions of 1855, p. 545. It continued out in full force, depredating 
everywhere in the fields of flax and corn and in gardens, for a period of three 
weeks, when, the'worms having got their growth, began to be less nume¬ 
rous, and had all disappeared at the end of the month. 
Just as this worm was about to vanish, another one, larger and moro 
voracious, came out to occupy its place and continue the work of destruc- 
