Tests were conducted in laboratory and outdoor cages during 1962 and 1963 at Oxford, N. C., to determine the presence of a sex attractant in the tobacco budworm, Heliothis virescens (F). In the 1962 tests, males of all ages were caught in traps with virgin females just prior to dawn, but virgin females were at least 4 days old before they attracted males. In 1963, traps containing ether extracts of whole virgin females or a hexane extract of the last 2 abdominal segments at the rate of 4 and 8 virgin female equivalents caught about the same numbers of males.