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Tests of forty materials during several seasons in an effort to discover an efficient stomach poison for the tobacco hornworm moths, Phlegethontius sexta Joh. and P. quinquemaculata Haw., have revealed that a 5 per cent solution of tartar emetic is an effective and satisfactory poison when used in conjunction with isoamyl salicylate as an attractant. Large-scale field experiments have been conducted for three successive seasons with promising results. The latest type of moth feeder developed is illustrated.

Collections of male tobacco horn worms, Manduca sexta (L.), in blacklight (BL) traps can be increased 10 or more times by baiting the traps with virgin female moths (Hoffman et al. 1966, Cantelo and Smith 1971). However. the rearing of these females is expensive and time consuming, and a synthetic female pheromone is not available. Therefore, we hoped to find a substitute material that could be used to increase collections. Isoamyl salicylate was chosen for evaluation because when it was used to bait relatively inefficient screen traps in Tennessee, it caught as many as 925 tobacco hornworms in a season. Also, 16 other species of sphingids were caught, but only Byles lineata (F.) and Xylophanes tersa (L.) were caught “in numbers” (Morgan and Lyon 1928). Moreover, at Oxford, N. C., collections in 12 similar-type traps (Stahl 1954) baited with isoamyl salicylate plus simulated jimson weed flowers averaged 112 M. sexta and 155 tomato hornworms, M. quinquemaculata (Haworth), each year from 1942 through 1953 with peak yearly collections of 414 M. sexta and 218 M. quinquemaculata . (However, in 1949, unbaited BL traps collected 15 × as many hornworm moths (both species) and in 1952–53 7–9× as many as the baited screen traps.)