<&a,r\y part of May the worms attract attention by the innumerable 
small holes they make in the leaves. Their colors are dirty yellow 
and gray-green, and when not feeding they rest on the under side of 
the leaf, curled up in a spiral manner, the tail occupying the center, 
and fall to the ground at the slighest disturbance. After changing 
their skin four times they become fully grown, when thev measure 
three-fourths of an incn. * 
At this season they descend into the ground and form a very weak 
•cocoon of earth, the inside being made smooth by a sort of gum. In 
this they soon change to pupae, from which are produced a second 
brood of flies by the end of June and beginning of July. Under the 
influence of July weather the whole process of egg depositing, etc., are 
rapidly repeated, and the second brood of worms descend into the 
•earth during the forepart of August, and from their cocoons, in 
which they remain in the caterpillar state through the fall, winter 
and early spring months, till the middle of April following, when 
they become pupae and flies again appear, as related. 
Remedies .—The worms are destroyed by sprinkling the vines with 
a solution of one pound of Hellebore to twenty gallons of water, and 
since they first make their appearance while the vines are in blossom, 
poultry can be allowed the freedom of the vines to an advantage, if 
thought preferable to the solution. 
THE STALK-BORER —Gortyna nitela —Guenee. 
Various complaints have reached me during the past summer from 
the Northern part of the State that the stalks of corn have withered 
and died in the field, when, upon examining the stalk, a small worm 
was found enclosed, and which proved to be the originator of the mis¬ 
chief. The worm is known to entomologists as the larva of a moth 
called the Gortyna nitela , Guenee. The habits of the insect in its 
various stages were first described in the Prairie Farmer under date 
of February 23d, 1867, by Mr. Riley. Since that time various notes 
have been added in the American Entomologists and State reports, but 
even at this date the entire life history is not complete. The eggs 
have not been discovered by observers, but it is evident they are de¬ 
posited singly on the stalk of the food plant, the young larva, as soon 
as hatched, boring into the stalk and feeding on the inner pith; the 
entree is made through a round cylindrical hole near the ground, the 
worm working up. 
It has been supposed that the insect matured in one stalk, but dur¬ 
ing the past summer I have found half-grown worms entering non- 
infested stalks, and opened withered ones from which they had made 
their escape; and Mr. Riley states in the Prairie Farmer , August 11th, 
1877, that “ it bores into the stems of all sorts of plants, and is, 
some years, very common in wheat stalks, which, while yet young, 
it leaves through cylindrical holes in order to eat its way into some 
thicker stemmed plant, in which it more readily attains full 
growth.” Their disposition is to live singly, since only one worm is 
in a stalk, unless in the larger corn stalks, when as many as three have 
