BOLLWORM bVwfirm ( boll, the round pod or capsule of cotton ww.m). The widely de structive caterpillar of a nocturnal moth ( II( /io this armigera). "I If popular names," says C. V. Riley, who studied and wrote extensively upon it, "it has one for almost every plant upon which it feeds and for every country which it inhabits, and as it is almost cosmopolitan and a very gen eral feeder, these names are many. Throughout cotton-growing States it is very generally known as the 'bollworm when it occurs upon cotton; when it occurs upon corn it is called the 'corn or 'earworm2 . . . in many Southern 'States it is known in the early part of the sea son as the `eo•nbud-worm.' When found upon tomatoes it is the `tomato-worm.'" It attacks a great variety of vegetables and flowers etc.), nail in Europe feeds upon maize, hemp, tobacco, lucerne, etc. It usually produces two to five broods in a season. and ranks among the most destructive and difficult to combat of all injurious The Mnt 11 hats sun of about inches; the general color of the tippet :surface varies from light greenish-gray to a rieh yellow-gray, almost tawny, and the markings vary much in intensity and size. The moths fly in the evening dusk, seeking the dowers of sonic suitable plant of the season. and depositing their eggs upon the surface of, or more often to, the dower-bud. Mien Indian corn is about to flower this plant seems preferred to anything else (save perhaps cotton) then available; and tomatoes with corn near them will be saved to a great extent by this preference. The egg hatches soon, and the young caterpillar begins to feed and to make its NV y steadily toward tlower-lmd or boll, searching patiently for it until found. when it begins :It. once to feed there. destroying
the essential parts of the unfolded flower of corn or other plant, or ruining the cotton-holl,whether more or less advanced. "As the bollworms in crease in size, a most wonderful diversity of color and marking becomes apparent. in color, differ ent individuals will vary from a brilliant green to a deep pink or a dark brown. exhibiting almost every conceivable intermediate stage, and from an imnmenlate, unstriped specimen to one with regu lar spots and many stripes." in addition to their feeding upon this vegetable matter, these cater pillars are carnivorous, seizing and devouring each other whenever opportunity offers, and in variably doing so when shut up together in a breeding-cage or traveling-cage, until only one remains. At the end of about three weeks the worms drop to the ground. their way sev eral inches into the soil, and. spinning a mantle of silk about them, become reddish-brown pol ished pup:e. In the warmer parts of the United States no less than five broods appear. It is the third or duly brood which does most harm to the corn, and the fourth (August) brood that furnishes the bollworm proper and the greatest destruction to cotton, while •budworms' are those of the spring hatching. The fifth brood winters as chrysalis and maintains the race.
Blntiocestnnr. C. V. Riley, Third Report In sects of Missonri : Pelmets United States Department .1grieu I ure (Washington, ltiS ) : Fourth Report Unitcd States Entomological Com mission (Washington, 1885) Lintner, First Re port laser's of New York (Albany, 18S3) ; Malley, Bulletin No. 2), United States Depart ment A gricult tire (Washington, ISM).