CUT-WORMS. 
443 
Fig. 220. 
Tlic habits of our cut-worms appear to be exactly the 
same as those of the European Agrotidians. It is chiefly 
during the months of June and July that they are found to 
be most destructive. Whole corn-fields are sometimes laid 
waste by them. Cabbage-plants, till they are grown to a 
considerable size, are very apt to be cut off and destroyed by 
them. Potato-vines, beans, beets, and various other culinary 
plants, suffer in the same way. The products of our flower- 
gardens are not spared ; asters, balsams, pinks, and many 
other kinds of flowers, are often shorn of their leaves and 
of their central buds, by these concealed spoilers. Several 
years ago I procured a considerable 
number of cut-worms (Pig. 220) in 
the months of June and July. Some £ 
of them were dug up among cabbage- 
plants, some from potato-hills, and others from the corn- 
field and the flower-garden. Though varying in length 
from one inch and a quarter to two inches, they were fully 
grown, and buried themselves immediately in the earth with 
which they were supplied. They were all thick, greasy- 
looking caterpillars, of a dark ashen-gray color, with a 
brown head, a blackish horny spot on the top of the first 
and last rings, a pale stripe along the back, and several 
minute black dots on each ring. They were soon changed 
to chrysalids, of a shining mahogany-brown color ; and be- 
tween the 20th of July and the 15th of August they came 
out of the ground in the moth state. Much to my surprise, 
however, these cut-worms produced five different species 
of moths ; and, when it was too late, I regretted that they 
had not been more carefully examined, and compared to- 
gether before their transformation. 
The largest of these moths may be called Agrotis telifcra , 
the lance-rustic. It closely resembles Agrotis sitffusa, the 
dark sword-rustic of Europe. The fore wings are light 
brown, shaded with dark brown along the outer thick edge, 
and in the middle also in the female : these wings are divided 
