The Moths and Butterflies 
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indefinite wavy lines of black and of lighter brown; in the hinder angle 
of the hind wings are two incomplete eye-spots bounded in front by a curv¬ 
ing velvety black line, and on each fore wing is a single irregular eye-spot 
near the front margin. 
“Cutworm” is the name applied to the smooth, “greasy,” plump cater¬ 
pillars of numerous species (representing several genera) of Noctuids. The 
greasy cutworm, dull blackish brown with pale longitudinal lines attacks 
all sorts of garden products and other low-growing plants; it is the larva 
Fig. 582.—Green-fruit worms, Xylina grotei, at left, and Xylina antennata at right. 
(Photograph by Slingerland; natural size.) 
of Agrotis ypsilon, with brownish-gray fore wings bearing an ypsilon- 
shaped mark, the hind wings being silky white. The climbing cutworm, 
Carneades scandens, an active climber and great enemy of nurseries and 
orchards, is light yellowish gray with a dark line along the back and fainter 
ones along the sides; the moth has light bluish-gray fore wings with darker 
markings and pearly-white hind wings. Almost all the cutworms hide 
in cracks in the ground by day, feeding during the night; they will often 
cut off young plants just at the ground, or will ascend tall trees and feed 
on the buds and young leaves. When ready to pupate they burrow into 
the soil and the moths issue in midsummer. 
The members of the large genus Plusia (PI. VIII, Fig. 7), including some 
of the commonest Noctuids, are recognizable by a small silvery comma-shaped 
spot on the disk of each fore wing. Another large genus is that of Cucul- 
lia, the hooded owlets, in which the thorax bears a prominent tuft of scales 
and the fore wings are marked with irregular blackish dashes. The 
