NOTES ON CUTWORMS. 
Order Lepidoptera. Family NoctuiDjE. 
The damage done by cutworms in 1888 to the crops of Illinois 
far surpassed anything of the sort ever before recorded in the 
State in amount and range and in the period of its continuance, 
not the least remarkable feature of it being the fact that it was 
due chiefly to a single species not recognized by any of our ento¬ 
mologists in its larval state, and of whose habits and history noth¬ 
ing whatever had been recorded. Successful breeding experiments 
have given us the essential facts concerning this species, new to 
economic entomology; and I take advantage of the discussion thus 
called for, to bring together a number of miscellaneous notes of recent 
accumulation concerning several other species of cutworms observed 
in this State. Precise data with respect to the period of activity 
of the various species are of especial economic importance, since 
upon this depends the time when the crops infested by them may 
safely be replanted. 
The unprecedented outbreak of 1888 was foreshadowed in 1887, as 
is shown by the following field notes of an assistant, Mr. C. M 
Weed, taken as examples of many similar observations: 
“Urbaha, April 21, 1887. Cutworms are very common in grass 
lands everywhere this spring. Collected nearly fifty here this 
afternoon. Are especially abundant under boards along fences. 
April 22. Cutworms very numerous under boards in pasture, 
twenty-three under a single fence board. Collected two hundred 
and fifty in three hours.” 
“Carterville, Williamson county, May 10, 1887. Corn cutworms 
doing serious injury. All of one species. [This proved to be the 
same as that the most destructive the following year, repeatedly 
bred by us to the imago of Agrotis morrisoniana , Riley.] Ate 
everything in one garden: beans, sweet potatoes, five hundred 
strawberry plants, onions, corn, etc. Twenty acres of oats also 
destroyed.” 
From Waynesville, DeWitt county, a farmer wrote me May 18, 
1887, that cutworms had cut off his potato vines, water-melons, 
and musk-melons; and at Urbana, May 31, we noticed cutworms 
yet working on the corn, most of them full grown, but occasional 
specimens much smaller. 
