June, '09] JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 203 



more plentiful than I ever saw them before in land that I want to 

 plant in tobacco. I have some cabbage that they are cutting off now. ' ' 



A later letter from the same party said that "they live deep in 

 the clay and come out at night to do their destruction." 



Upon securing specimens it was found that the culprit was the 

 cricket Anurogryllus muticus, of which we had never before had com- 

 plaint and which was only meagerly represented in our collections. 

 The burrowing habit of the species is discussed by Rev. A. H. Manee 

 (of Southern Pines, N. C.) in the December issue of Entomological 

 News. 



From time to time ever since I have been in North Carolina I 

 have heard vag-ue reports of a "Root-louse" or "Blue-bug" which 

 was said to attack roots of cotton. The reports always indicated that 

 it was a serious pest, but they always reached me at such times or 

 in such manner that no specimens were available. Only the persis- 

 tency of the reports kept me from assigning them to the scrap-pile 

 of entomological fallacies. The year 1907 brought out an unusual 

 crop of reports, but in no case could I get specimens. I determined, 

 however, to lay plans for at least determining the identity of the pest 

 in 1908. and, accordingly, last spring sent out a circular letter to nu- 

 merous growers saying that even the identity of the insect was yet 

 in doubt and asking their aid in ferreting out the culprit. As a con- 

 sequence we definitely determined that the species concerned is Aphis 

 maidi-radicis Forbes, famous as the Corn Root-aphis of the Central 

 States. We found, too, that in the cotton-fields of North Carolina 

 it is commonly attended by the ant Lasiiis aliena Forst, which is con- 

 sidered to be a variety of Lasius niger, the common ant in attendance 

 on the Corn Root-aphis in Illinois. 



Aphis maidi-radicis has not heretofore been recognized as a cot- 

 ton pest. Dr. Howard wrote me that it had been once reported from 

 South Carolina on cotton, — but no published account of it had ap- 

 peared. Yet I am convinced that it is (at least in North Carolina) 

 a cotton pest of real importance and of wide distribution. I found it 

 in cotton fields at Raleigh where the infested plants were invariably 

 more stunted and belated in their growth than uninfested ones nearby. 

 Growers say that these stunted plants are likely to be caught by frost 

 before they can mature their crop. 



This insect has never been reported to me as a corn pest until the 

 past spring when one complaint was received from a section where 

 the Cotton Root-louse is not complained of. I cannot take time and 

 space here to discuss further the abundance and destructiveness of 

 the pest as revealed by my correspondents, but I have scarcely a doubt 



