85 
Besides the species above mentioned, Nephelodes violcins and 
Agrotis subgothica were last year especially common in Central 
Illinois. 
In 1888 a chorus of complaints arose from every 'part of the 
State; first at the south, where the cutworm hordes were often 
mistaken for the army worm; and later from Southern and North¬ 
ern Illinois. Besides their unprecedented numbers, these cutworms 
were remarkable for their indiscriminate feeding habits and for 
the long period of their mischievous activity. The severity of 
their attack upon potatoes, especially,—a plant not commonly con¬ 
sidered liable to injury by these insects,—suggested for them in 
many {daces, the common name of the “potato cutworm.” 
Of course several species were concerned both years in this at¬ 
tack, the dominant ones not being the same, however, in the two. 
In 1887, the commonest were the W-marked cutworm (Agrotis 
clandestina ) and the bronzed cutworm (Nephelodes violcms); but 
in 1888 the clay-backed cutworm ( Agrotis morrisoniana) was by far 
the most numerous and widely distributed. 
The well-known Agrotis subgothica was also extremely numer¬ 
ous, but of much less importance than the preceding; and in one 
case Agrotis ypsilon destroyed several acres of corn. 
The unexampled continuance of the outbreak, reaching, as it did, 
far into June and even into July, was explained when the life 
history of the most abundant species was ascertained. 
Taking up in order those on which notes have been made deemed 
worthy of publication, 1 will discuss more fully the injuries of the 
season when treating of the kinds most concerned in them. 
The W-marked Cutworm.* 
(Agrotis clandestina , Harris.) 
( Plate V., fig. 1.) 
This common species, not extraordinarily abundant here in 1888, 
was, as already mentioned, unusually common in the central part 
of the State in 1887. 
DESCRIPTION OF LARVA. 
The current description of this species does not apply to our 
specimens with recognizable closeness, and I add a description 
drawn up from four lots collected in Central Illinois in 1887. 
The species is distinctly marked, even to a casual inspection, by 
four rows of conspicuous black spots, two subdorsal, and one upon 
each side, having the spiracles at their lower edge. The subdorsal 
spots are more or less triangular in outline (most evidently so pos¬ 
teriorly), with the apex forward; the lateral ones oblique. 
'This common name, given by Riley, is here continued because it lias been already often used in 
ocosdrnic literature. The “W" marks are not evident, however. 
