The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-06-23
The Army Worm I'm Texas.

We have not yet seen the worm reported
as having appeared in the cotton fields in
some of the counties in the Red river valley
and near Bryan. The following may help to
determine whether ii is the genuine army
worm or not: The army worm is the grub Of
a nocturnal worm known to entomologists as
the leucania unipuncta. The moth when
fully extended is about An inch long and an
inch and three-q quarters in width from tin to
tip, and is of ayelowish-drab color inclining
to russell Its fore wings--for the leucania,
like all lipidopters, has two sets of wings -
are each decorated with one dot near the
center and dusky oblique stripe at the tip.
1t generally deposits its eggs at the base of
perennial grass stalks about the end of June
or early in July, and they are Matched in the
next spring. For about q month after they
are Matched they feed voraciousIy upon vege-
tation, and then descend into the ground,
where, in an oval chamber, the larva changes
to a shining, mshogony-colored chrysalis,
which in two weeks develops into the image
or mature insect, by killing which the birth
of multitudes of offspring may be prevented
The lava or worm, when it has attained its
full growth, is from an inch to an inch and
three quarters long, dark gray, and
marked with three narrow, yellowsh
stripes above and q broader
one of the same color or slightly darker
upon each side. 1t is thinly clothed with
short hairs, and has black line on the head
shaped like tho letter Y. The mouth of the
moth had been adapted simply to sucking
dew and the nectar Of flowers, the mandibles,
labium and labrum being in rudimentary
state, while the msxille were enormously de-
veloped, forming proboscis with which it
gathered food, and which when at rest was
coiled up like watch-spring in front of the
head. The larva, however is fully furnished
with apparatus tor mastcaton and sets out
on its travels, doing nothing but creep and
gnaw the vegetation that comes in its way
When the insect appears in such incalculs.
bly, vast armies and gardeners are at a
loss for means to stay its progress, but in or.
binary times it may be destroyed with Lon
don purple or Paris green, and its march
may be cut OFF by trenches dug in the line of
its advance. Preventive measures are the
ploughing of an infested field in the autumn
to destroy the eggs, or burning the stubble
over the eggs, Natural enemies of the worm
are crows and blackbirds, hogs and ichneu.
mon flies, which latter are the deadly foes of
the lepidopters. They deposit their egg,
on the eggs, Larvae and pupa
of these insects, and in paying
attention to the army worm they lay three
or four white eggs upon his skin Just behind
the head, and when the ichneumon larya are
Matched they proceed at once to make meal
Of their involuntary host. The ichneumon
fly itself is harmless tn man, and for the sake
of the good that it does should be left un-
harmed by him, as also should the despised
crow, which has been shown 10 be more SER
yiceable to the farmer by reason of the insects
which it destroys than it is troublesome to
him in the cornield. And, rs long as YOU
follow farming, never forget that every bird
upon your place represents his weight
destroyed every day in insects of some kind
or other, army worms, caterpillars, bugs,
flies, or some other species of arch.enemy TO
your field or garden or orchard crops, or your
chickens, ducks, geese, horses, mules, cows
and calves. When we smite them we smite
our truest, greatest friends and benefactors.