Various remedies, as plowing, rolling, ditching, fencing, and the use of insecticides have been suggested and used with more or less favorable results, both in this and other states; deep plowing immediately after harvest having succeeded in a few instances by covering the bugs so deeply that they could not creep out. Rolling at a like season has crushed large numbers, while ditching and fencing have succeeded in "bunching" them, and for a time checking their onward movement while migrating from small-grain fields to corn fields. At such times the dragging forward and backward of a heavy weight of some sort has been the means of causing great slaughter among their continually-increasing ranks. Ditches into which water could be turned have formed complete barriers to their creeping migrations, but not to the after movements of the winged insects as they were about to mate for the second brood.

This insect, like all depredators, has its likes and dislikes, and chooses its food-plants with considerable daintiness of taste.

The small grains are the first on the list, after which follow some of the grasses and corn. Among the grasses millet, Hungarian, and fox-tail stand at the head, while a few others that usually grow as weeds follow closely. Wild buckwheat is also quite a delicacy with them, and I have noticed several examples where weedy fields were less injured than clean ones, notwithstanding the fact that the one contained equally as many bugs as the other. Several farmers in this state have also mentioned the same fact to me. As a rule, grain in a grassy field has the disadvantage alongside of that growing in a clean one. During the past summer I saw several examples in which the scale was turned. One of these in particular attracted my attention at the time. The crop was corn, growing just across the road from a field of wheat which had been so badly damaged as to render its harvest useless. The ground was covered with wild Hungarian or fox-tail grass, which at the time, August 6th, was dead and perfectly dry for a considerable distance in from the road. Upon examination it was found that our old acquaintance was at work here, attacking the fox-tail in preference to the corn. Referring to my notes made on the ground, I find the following:

"The Chinch-bug is still present in considerable numbers in a few corn fields, but absent from others where there are signs of its work. In these a large per cent of the grass (fox tail) had been entirely killed before the corn was attacked. In no instance has the corn been greatly damaged, the only perceptible injury being in the drying up of a few of the lower leaves."

We had several heavy rains just prior to this, so the partial disappearance of the pest could very likely be attributed to that cause. Since that date but a few scattering specimens of the bugs have been noticed. Hence, I imagine our rains of August and September have been of great benefit in their diminution.

In conclusion, I would state that the only remedy that I know of is in clean farmingburning all rubbish in early spring that has not disappeared during fall and winter; also the protection of our winter birds.

In regions that depend entirely upon irrigation for moisture, or such as are easily flooded, there never need be any loss of crops from the depredations of this insect.

As to future possibilities of injury we can say nothing definite, as weather alone will decide the matter, a wet year preventing and a dry one favoring their increase in damaging numbers.

THE CORN-WORM, BOLL-WORM, TOMATO-WORM, ETC.
[Heliothis Armigera.]

FIG. 11-The Corn Worm, (Heliothis armigera;) ear of corn showing larvæ and work; at right, pupa and moth. [After Riley.]

A very common as well as a very injurious insect in the state of Nebarska, is the one bearing the above names in different portions of the country. And queer, too, it is, when we take into consideration the widely different nature of these food plants upon which the insect works. Nor are these its only food plants. It is also known to work upon a large variety of others, differing greatly one from the other both as to nature and taste. Peas, beans, pumpkins, squashes, peppers, heads of hemp, leaves of tobacco, of lucerne, etc., also boring into the stems of the tomato, gladiolus, and geraniums. It also works on the Jamestown weed (Datura stramonium) and the different ground-cherries, (Physalis,) as well as upon the seed-bolls of the morning-glories. It will be seen from these references that with but few exceptions, the worm, for it is the larva only that does the damage, is essentially a fruit and seed-eater-almost invariably attacking the part bearing the seed, or else the pulpy stem in the absence of these. Aside from these it is not, however, too dainty a feeder to refuse the leaves of tobacco, geraniums, and any other plant available in their stead.

Here in Nebraska the worm is essentially a corn insect, and it is as such that we have to deal with it. Every, farmer who has raised corn has seen the worm, and knows how it works upon the tender new corn, by entering at the "silk end" of the ear and living upon the kernelssometimes almost entirely denuding the cob. Figure 11 shows the insect in its larval, pupal, and perfect stages, and Fig. 12 the egg, larva, pupa, and imago with spread wings. In Fig. 13 it is shown as a tomato worm.

The parent moth, while classed with Noctuidæ or nocturnal species, along with the cut-worms, is partly diurnal in its habits. On hazy days, and especially during late summer, it can be seen flying about and feeding upon the blossoms of clover, golden-rod, etc. There are from two to three broods annually here in Nebraska, the early spring larvæ feeding scattered about upon such different food plants as present themselves, and maturing in time to be ready for the first appearance of the

tender ears of corn. The second brood is the one to be dreaded. After the corn has ripened and these larvæ of the second brood have pupated, there is sometimes a third brood; i. e., some of

cluded nature of the larvae, has but few natural enemies. Hence every moth killed in spring before egg-laying begins means the saving of a considerable later loss.

As remedies that have been tried with success, the following are suggested: hand-picking, attracting by odor and drowning, and attracting by light. The first applies to the larvæ; the others to the moths.

Hand-picking.-Where the larvæ infest gardens, the gathering of them by hand and afterwards destroying is quite

feasible. Even in cornfields of moderate extent, this method of warfare is of sufficient benefit to pay for the time thus spent. Its presence in the ears is known by the eaten and blackened silk, mingled with excreta. To capture the worms here, the husk can be opened at the top and the depredator killed.

Attracting by odors and drowning. During certain times of the year, when the moths are issuing from pupæ and before they have laid their eggs, these insects can be attracted to baits and destroyed. For this purpose a mixture of molasses and vinegar set out in the fields in shallow dishes, will attract and destroy them. This method will also attract and destroy many other species. The following quotation from the Patent Office Report, (Agriculture,) for the year 1885, page 285, gives some light upon this subject:

FIG. 13.-The Corn Worm (H. Armigera) as a tomato worm. [After Riley.]

"We procured eighteen common-sized dinner plates, into each of which we put half a gill of vinegar and molasses, previously prepared in the proportion of four parts of the former to one of the latter. These plates were set on small stakes or poles driven into the ground in the cotton field, one to about each three acres, and reaching a little above the cotton plant, with a

six-inch-square board to receive the plate. These arrangements were made in the evening soon after the flies (moths) had made their appearance. The next morning we found from eighteen to thirty-five moths in each plate. The experiment was continued for five or six days, distributing the plates over the entire field, each day's success increasing, [? decreasing.] until the numbers were reduced to two or three moths to each plate, when it was abandoned as being no longer worthy of the trouble. The crop that year was very little injured."

Attracting by Lights.-The habit among a large number of nocturnal insects of coming to bright lights, has frequently been taken advantage of for the purpose of destroying certain of

FIG. 14.-Lamp arranged for catching moths. [After Lintner.]

the injurious species. This has been done in connection with the one under present consideration. While I do not approve of the general use of this as a remedy against nocturnal-insect pests, it might be resorted to in extreme cases. Just as many of the useful or beneficial species are also attracted by lights, and many of them are certain to be destroyed along with the injurious ones. The best means of applying this remedy is shown in Fig. 14. If this plan is adopted, many of the beneficial species will be enabled to crawl out of the water and escape, while the moths cannot. A very little kerosene oil should be added to the water to prove most beneficial in results. This will also add greatly to the number of the friends destroyed.

Prof. J. A. Lintner, in commenting upon the destruction of the first brood of this moth, has the following remarks to of fer, which will also apply to other injurious species:

*

"To illustrate the great importance of destroying the insects which would produce the first brood of a many brooded species, and the ease with which subsequent multiplication may at this time be prevented, we present the following calculation, showing the results which would follow the above experiments conducted for a single night, upon the supposition that each female of five successive broods would have deposited its full quota of eggs, and that each egg would have produced a moth. It is scarcely necessary to add that not even a near approach to such an entire exemption from loss in four distinct stages of insect life can ever occur in nature.

"The average number of moths to the plate as given above (referring to the same quotation from the Patent Office Report embodied here) being twentysix, the entire number captured during the night would have been four hundred and sixtyeight. Assuming one-half of these to have been females, and each to contain five hundred eggs, the caterpillars of the first brood would number one hundred and seventeen thousand. By the same method of calculation, we have for the second brood twenty-nine and a quarter millions of caterpillars; and continuing the computation until we reach the fifth and last brood, we have the amazing number of 457,031,250,000,000 caterpillars, or exceeding four hundred fifty-seven trillions.

"To present this computation in a more convenient and comprehensive form: Under the above conditions and by the same progressive increase, a Corn-moth emerging from its pupa in May would be represented by a progeny of nearly two trillions of caterpillars in its last annual brood in November, a number fourteen hundred times greater than that of the entire human population (as estimated) of the globe."

In this computation Mr. Lintner has carried his figures on to the fifth generation or brood, and not made allowance for loss of life by accident, disease, or predaceous foes. Our third brood is the last one we can count on for this state. Of course these figures only show possible results, and are not intended to represent actual facts. At any rate the increase of insect life is sufficiently rapid to warrant the expenditure of prompt and summary measures in dealing with them.

*First Annual Report of the State Entomolgoist of New York, 1882, p. 126.

FIG. 15.- Box-elder plant louse, (Chaitophorus negundinis;) a, winged viviparous female; b, young from viviparous female; c, viviparous apterous female; d, apterous oviparous or true female; e, egg-all enlarged. [Original from drawings by T. A. Williams.]

There are scarcely any of our shade, ornamental, fruit, or forest trees but that suffer more or less from the attacks of various insect enemies. Some of these work upon the foliage, others upon the twigs and branches, others again bore into the wood of the trunk and larger limbs, while still others work upon and in the roots below the surface of the ground. Chief among the above-ground enemies of this class that work upon the Box-elder trees in the state of Nebraska, is a species of plant-louse or aphid. It is a sap-sucker, and is known to entomologists and others by the name of the "Box-elder Plant-louse" (Chaitophorus negundinis Thos.) because of its infesting this particular tree.

This louse, like those infesting various other trees and herbs, occurs in several forms, both winged and apterous. It is green-the color of the tender twigs and leaves upon which it attaches itself by means of its beak, which is used for extracting the juice or sap upon which it is nourished, from the tree.

Early in the spring, even before the tender leaves have made their appearance, the eggs that were deposited the previous fall, hatch, and the little fellows gather about the opening buds, where they wait patiently, and perhaps shiveringly, too, so as to be ready to attack the first green growth that appears. These little lice that come from the eggs are of the form known as agamous females, i. e., females which produce without the intervention directly of the opposite sex. These females are also viviparous; that is to say, their offspring are produced alive, which latter are also of a like nature. Just when the first winged specimens of this louse are to be found, we do not know, nor are we prepared to give an outline history of their especial mission in the cycles of this insect's annual existence, further than, perhaps, the spreading of the species from one locality to another. Some of these winged specimens, at least, like the wingless agamous form, are also viviparous. In the fall of the year, after the first frosts, and when most of the leaves have fallen, the true female, which is a wingless form, lays eggs. These latter are usually thrust into crevices of the bark, and between the bud and twig. By means of these eggs it is carried through winter, and the continuance of the species is insured for the following year.