The dark-sided cut-worm, (Agrotis messoria, Harr.), order Lepidoptera, family Noctuidae, has formed a new habit.

This insect was treated of in our last annual report (p. 290) under the general head of Cabbage Cut-worms, and is here refigured and mentioned because of its appearance the past summer in enormous numbers in the onion fields of Orange county, New York.

Our first intimation of the existence of this pest was through letter and specimens received June nth, from Hon. G. W. Greene, of Goshen, in which he stated that the worm was destroying the onion crop in his vicinity and threatened extinction to a large and growing industry. The annual value of the crop in the vicinity of Goshen alone he stated to be half a million dollars.

Mr. John B. Smith, and Mr. Thomas Bennett, a practical gardener of Newark, whom we had engaged for a short time to perform certain practical experiments with insecticides, were sent to Goshen to study the facts and surroundings, and in obedience to a request from Mr. Greene we sent him a letter for publication giving him such knowledge as we then possessed on the subject, and quoting our general recommendations for the destruction of cut-worms, as given in our last annual report (pp.298.300).