June, ’20] 
SHERMAN: GREEN CLOVER WORM 
297 
Habits 
Hill, referring to outbreaks in alfalfa, says the eggs are laid on the 
under side of the leaves and are hard to find because their color matches 
the leaf. On soy bean we found the very fresh eggs to resemble the 
leaf, but as they approached hatching they were darker, the chief 
difficulty in finding them being their small size. We did not find a 
preference for the lower side of the leaf. In a close examination of 
1,600 leaves August 27 to September 1, we found 62 eggs on upper 
surfaces to 45 on lower surfaces. As an evidence that the moths 
disperse far and wide before laying, eggs were found as numerous 
where the larvae had been fewest, as where they had been most 
abundant. 
The larvae can spin a weak thread and young ones often suspend by 
it. They are active and when disturbed can contort so violently as to 
throw themselves several feet. As one farmer wrote—“he flops like a 
cat-fish/’ They crawl with a semi-looping motion. They are green, 
variable. In our cages as well as in the field very young larvae showed 
a preference for the under side of the leaf and did not eat all the way 
through, but within three days, by the time they devoured an area 
as large as our copper cent, they ate entirely through and were to be 
found as numerously on the upper as on the lower surfaces. These 
observations refer to the larvae on soy-bean, especially on the younger 
leaves. I am aware that others have found that on lima bean they 
are more prone to remain on the lower surface and to feed only on that 
side, leaving the upper epidermis intact. 
Having observed the feeding habits both in cages and in the field 
we can say that even when present in great number the injury is not 
conspicuous for the first fifteen days of larval life, but becomes greatly 
emphasized during the last ten days. 
When grown the larvae drop from the plant or wander, often being 
found on weeds upon which they apparently did not feed. They 
pupate on or just under the soil in cracks, crevices, accidental holes or 
under trash, in loose silken cocoons mingled with particles of earth. 
The adults fly actively, show an inclination to seek shelter around 
buildings, and are only indifferently attracted to light. The males 
average larger than the females, indeed the sexes were regarded as 
distinct species until proven identical by Lintner in Canadian Entomolo¬ 
gist, May, 1873. 
Natural Enemies 
The only definite records we find under this head in the literature are 
in Chittenden’s paper where two species of parasites are recorded, 
neither of which were found by us. 
