236 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



full}' ripe, many ears were eaten for five or six inches from the top, 

 and upon examining the places closely, I found one or two bugs in 

 each one about the size of the Colorado-bug, with a mottled back 

 something like in color to a tortoise shell, with considerable hair on 

 the underside and legs, which I picked off and destroyed. This I fol- 

 lowed up for three or four days, but one morning, going to the corn 

 earlier than usual, I saw on one ear seven of the sparrows making a 

 new opening where there was none before. Of course, here was the 

 solution. After I had put a coat, pantaloons and hat on some sticks 

 nailed together and stood it up in the middle of the corn, I had no 

 more trouble with them. I supposed that the bugs did the mischief, 

 but they had only entered where the birds had made an opening." 



It is quite probable that the season (summer of 1878) Avas one in 

 which the species occurred in unusual abundance, and its ordinary 

 food not being met with in sufficient quantity to supply the wants of 

 Euch a host, it was led to resort to the juices of the tender corn, as an 

 exceptional article of food.* The excitement created by the advent 

 of the new corn insect in several localities from Avhich examples were 

 received, was allayed by the assurance which we were able to give, that 

 its large numbers at this time would not probably be followed by an 

 increased or even an equal number the next year, it being well known 

 to entomologists, that a year noted for the abundance of some particu- 

 lar species of insect may be followed by many when the same insect 

 will be rarely met with. 



Time of its Appearance. 



Dr. Harris' statement that this insect has its second brood about the 

 middle of September, in Massachusetts, may need some modification. 

 Examples of this brood were found as early as the middle of August, 

 near Bridgeport, Conn. Mr. Bassett records its having been seen by 

 bim feeding on the sap which flows from certain woody galls on oak 

 trees. The intense bitterness or acidity of most galls would seem to 

 be very unlike the sweets for which it manifests so great partiality. 



Mr. Bland, in a communication to the Entomological Society of 

 Philadelphia {Proc. E. S. Ph., i, 18G4, p. 42), reports finding the 

 species on the 2oth of August, in Camden county, N. J., abundant on 

 Vernonia Noveboracensis. 



Another species of this genus, the Euplioria melandioUca Gory, of 

 which a figure is given in the American E^itomologist, vol. ii, p. 61, 



*It3 abundance at this time is recorded by the Entomologist of the Department of Agri- 

 culture, in his resume ot the correspondence of the Department for the year 1878, as fol- 

 lows: "One of the commonest flower-beetles (^(wyoma «?i(ia) has been received from 

 several correspondents as attacking green corn — a habit which the species was not before 

 known to possess, and which has, beyond much doubt, been recently acquired." 



