Fall armyworm (FAW),Spodoptera frugiperda(J. E. Smith), were sampled from cornfields at the St. Gabriel Experiment Station in south-central Louisiana from 1981 to 1983. Data from single-plant samples and five-plant samples for small, medium, and large larvae and total population were fitted to the Poisson, negative binomial, and Neyman type-A distributions, as well as the Taylor power function. None of the three distributions fit FAW populations consistently. The power function provided significant regressions for all eight larval categories and was used to calculate number of samples required for different larval densities for a given confidence level.