THE ARMY-WORM. 19 
male can deposit from 500 to 750 eggs, which hatch in the 
course of six to ten days, according to the prevailing tem- 
perature. The young larve, which move like geometers on 
account of the rudimentary first two pairs of prolegs, feed 
as soon as born and, as true cut-worms, only during the 
night, so that there may be millions in a field unknown toits 
owner. They require in warmer regions about one month to 
reach their full size. The full-grown caterpillars vary greatly in 
color and general appearance, but usually they have four lat- 
eral, almost equally broadstripes, of which the upper two are 
white, the lower two yellow. The only characteristic fea- 
tures of these caterpillars is their possessing a highly pol- 
ished head mottled with confluent dark dots and marked by 
two darker lines, which commence at the corners of the 
mouth, approach each other near the center and recede 
again behind. A full-grown army-worm measures 11% 
inches. Entering the ground, it transforms inside of a cell 
of earth into a rather stout pupa of a shiny mahogany- 
brown color measuring three-quarters of aninch. With us the 
insect hibernates asa partly-grown larva. The food consumed 
by the army-worm consists of grasses and cereals, including, 
of course, corn. During their wanderings from one field to 
another the hungry worms will bite into all sorts of plants, 
and may cause considerable damage if they pass through a 
field of flax; here they will bite off the seed-pods without, 
however, utilizing the plantsforfood. Thisbad habit makes 
the worm also very destructive to oats since in this case 
they also bite off the loosely arranged kernels and thus in- 
jure more than they eat. The usual way of catching army- 
worms is to trap them in ditches and dispose of them there; 
this can be done in various ways and one of the most simple 
is to partly fill a ditch with straw and when fairly filled 
with worms, ignite it after adding some kerosene-oil. An- 
other way is to drag through such a ditch a shortlog which 
will grind up the worms and at the same time keep the sides 
of the ditch in a smooth condition which prevents the worms 
from crawling outagain. There areotherremedies by means 
of which the worms can be destroyed by fire or by poisoning; 
ditching is, however, the best and most simple remedy we 
