103 
brown in its original state but has turned very much darker since I 
found it.” . . . 
As a Corn-worm, the amount of injury it does varies with the sea¬ 
son, and somewhat with the locality. It attacks corn in the ear, eating 
first the silk, and as it increases in size the kernels on the end. of 
the ear while in the milk state. Prof. Riley says of its destructive 
ness, “We have seen whole fields of corn ruined in this way in the 
state of Kentucky, but no where have we known it to be so very des¬ 
tructive as in Southern Illinois.” In the second volume of the Amer¬ 
ican Entomologist he says of its work in the state of Kansas that, “in 
I860—the year of the great drought in Kansas—the corn crop in that 
state was almost entirely ruined by the Corn-worm. According to the 
Prairie Farmer of January 31, 1861, one county there, which raised 
436,000 bushels of corn in 1659, only produced 5,000 bushels of poor 
wormy stuff in 1860; and this, we are told, was a fair sample of most 
of the counties in Kansas. The damage done was not by any. means 
confined to the grain actually eaten by the worm ; but we are inform¬ 
ed in the same excellent article just now referred to, the ends of the 
ears of corn, when partially devoured and left by this worm, afforded 
a secure retreat for hundreds of small insects, which, under cover of 
the husk, finished the work of destruction commenced by the worm, 
eating holes in the grain or loosening them from the cob. A species 
of greenish brown mould or fungus grew likewise in such situations, 
it appearing that the dampness from the exuded sap favored such a 
growth. Thus decay and destruction rapidly progressed, hidden from 
the eye of the unsuspecting farmer.” 
I quote the above because it aptly represents what I .have seen here 
during the past season. As a general thing I think it has not been 
so destructive during the past season as it is sometimes, but in one 
field of late corn I found nearly every ear eaten by them, there being 
from one to half a dozen worms to each ear. In many of them, when 
my observations were made, while the corn was yet soft, the process 
of moulding and decay had progressed to such an extent that it was 
difficult to conceive that such corn could ever become anything fit for 
man or beast to eat. In some fields I visited the injury was much less, 
while in others only a few eaten ears could be found. 
The Corn-worm is about an inch and a half long when full grown, 
and varies in color from pale green to dark brown, striped longitudi¬ 
nally with darker stripes of the same color, being somewhat lighter 
when young. Though this variation in color is so great as to make 
them look like different insects, still the markings are the same, the 
green worms marked with stripes of darker green, and the brown ones 
with darker brown, all having eight round, shining black spots on 
each segment of the body, from which arise short brown hairs. The 
head and neck are brown. When full-grown they leave the ears and 
descend into the ground where they change to chrysalids that are 
light chestnut brown with the marking darker. 
With us the worms are said by Prof. Riley to be two brooded, while 
according to Glover thev are three brooded in Georgia, and are proba¬ 
bly single brooded still farther north where the seasons are shorter. 
The first brood remain in the chrysalis state from three to. four weeks 
when they come forth as moths, tne second brood remaining in the 
