4 
bulletin 98. 
From my notes of 1896 I extract the following: 
May 22. Took about 500 Loxostege sticticalis moths last night. Cloudy 
and warm. 
May 24. Took about 200 moths of L. sticticalis last night. Examined 
100 moths and found that 29 were males and 71 females. The females 
predominating so greatly indicates that the eggs have quite largely been 
deposited. Dissections show that the majority of those taken have 
their ovaries full of eggs; in some cases the eggs are still immature, 
and in others many or nearly all of the eggs have been deposited. 
June 10. The moths are still numerous at light and females are still 
found containing immature eggs. 
These records with others at this station indicate maxima 
of the broods about the 20th of May, June, July, and 
August. The records have not been continuous through¬ 
out a season, but are sufficient to strongly indicate a brood of 
moths and worms prior to the brood that attacks the beets in July 
though no one seems to have discovered the worms of this brood 
as yet. 
HISTORY OF THE WORMS IN COLORADO. 
The first complaint of injuries of any importance done by 
this insect in Colorado that came to my notice was on the 9th of 
July, 1903, when Mr. H. V. Norton, living a couple of miles northeast 
of Fort Collins, sent word that some kind of a worm had sudden¬ 
ly appeared in great numbers in one of his fields and was rapidly 
destroying his onions and cabbages. I visited Mr. Norton’s place 
at once and found near the center of the infested lot a small 
patch, perhaps a half acre, of dry uncultivated ground above water, 
that was densely grown up to pigweed (Chenopodium album). 
The weeds appeared to have died and dried up, but upon exami¬ 
nation I found that the leaves had been eaten away by the worms 
of the insect under consideration, and that some of the worms 
were still upon the plants, but the great proportion of them had 
migrated out in all directions into the patches of onions and cab¬ 
bages which were close at hand. The worms were nearly full 
grown and after a few days disappeared. 
Two days later, July 11, I was informed that a little striped 
worm had appeared in many of the beet fields northeast of Ft. 
Collins and was doing serious injury to the plants which were 
still rather small. In company with Mr. Charles Evans, manager 
of the Ft. Collins Beet Growers Association, I visited several 
farms where injuries were reported. In most cases the injury was 
not severe. Where the worms were most numerous, in nearly 
every case, the field was in alfalfa the previous summer, aud con¬ 
siderable alfalfa had been allowed to grow among the beets up to 
about the time of our visit. Whether the alfalfa had any direct 
bearing upon the presence of the worms or not is, however, quite 
uncertain. The late brood of worms which did the chief harm 
the past season, were not heard from in 1903. 
