BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY. 641 



entire life history of the insect from egg to adult has been carefully 

 worked out, but additional information with reference to its food 

 plants is yet to be secured. 



THE WESTERN CORN ROOT-WORM. 



An apparently unusual and certainly unexpected outbreak of the 

 western corn root-worm has been in progress in Tennessee. A com- 

 plete life history of the insect is being worked out and additional 

 knowledge of its habits obtained which will undoubtedly enable us 

 to suggest thoroughly effective and practical motliods of prevention 

 under a greater variety of cultural conditions than heretofore. It 

 is hoped that this investigation will be completed during the coming 

 fiscal year. 



THE NEW MEXICO RANGE CATERPILLAE. 



The country over which the New Mexico range caterpillar is 

 known to occur has been gone over carefully, and, owing to adverse 

 weather, the species was not so destructive during the year as it was 

 earlier. The indications are, however, that as soon as it recovers 

 from the backset occasioned by adverse weather conditions it will 

 be as destructive over a widened range of distribution as it was two 

 years ago over a more limited area. 



OTHER FIELD INSECTS. 



The long-continued investigation of leafhoppers with relation to 

 cereal atid forage crops throughout the United States has been com- 

 pleted and a bulletin (No. 108) giving the results of this investigation 

 is now in press. Similarly an investigation of two species of false 

 M'ireworms injurious to growing grain in the extreme northwestern 

 portion of the country has been completed and the results published. 

 One of the corn billbugs, very destructive to corn in some portions of 

 the country, has been studied, and entirely practical measures for 

 preventing further injuries have been found, an account of which 

 has been published. A thorough stud}' of a chinch-bug outbreak 

 west of the Mississippi River has been carried out, and the results 

 of the investigation, including practical measures of prevention, 

 have been published. Another completed investigation is that of 

 the western army worm and its damage to wheat and alfalfa. The 

 jointworm work and the white-grub investigations have been con- 

 tinued, and the latter have been extended over a much wider range 

 of country, including the States of South Dakota, Wisconsin, 

 Kansas, Indiana, Oiiio, Virginia, and Pennsjdvania. Wireworms, 

 ihe corn leaf -a phis, the western grass-stem sawfly, the clover stem- 

 borer, a new plant louse on alfalfa, and a leaf miner damaging the 

 same plant, a gall midge on alfalfa, and a clover and alfalfa seed 

 chalcis have all been studied with favorable results. 



A number of otlier insects that each year seem to be increasing on 

 alfalfa and other crops grown in extreme southern Texas demand 

 attention. Some of these are entirely new in the United States, 

 having spread northward from across the Kio Grande. One of 

 these is the Mexican army worm; another is a new root-worm, 



70181°— AQB 1912 41 



