SCULPTURED CORN" CURCULIO : ORIGINAL FOOD-PLANT. 259 



Missouri Report, p. 10), of the members of the same family, " with the 

 exception of an European species {Anthribus variiis) whose larva was 

 found by Ratzeburg to destroy barl-c-lice, they are all vegetarians, the 

 larvaj inhabiting either the roots, stems, leaves or fruits of plants, and 

 the beetles feeding on the same." 



Wild Grass Probably its Original Food-plant, 

 A far more plausible explanation of the presence of the beetles upon 

 floating wc^od in sloughs, swamps, lake-shores and near rivers may bo 

 offered in the supposition that the natural food of this species, in botli 

 the larval and perfect stages, is found within the stems of the coarse 

 aquatic and swamp grasses that are natural to such localities, and that 

 tlie beetles, upon emerging from their pupation within the grasses, had 

 simply gathered upoii the timber for convenient resting-places. 



It is quite probable that the original food-plant of S. scnlptilis was 

 one or more of the following grasses : Indian rice {Zizauia nquatica), 

 growing on the banks and in the shallows of rivers, and abounding 

 in the Cayuga marshes of New York* and banks of the lludson and 

 Susquehanna rivers ; fresh-water cord-grass {Spartina cynosuroides)^ 

 occurring on lake shores and river banks; blue joint-grass (CcrZ^MMa- 

 yrostis Canadensis), common in wet meadows in Central New York 

 and elsewhere ; reed-grass {Phr'agmites communis), having the sanii' 

 habitat and common in the Cayuga marshes; and {Tripsacum dacfy- 

 loides), occurring in the AVestern States and probably common on the 

 shore of Lake Michigan near Chicago, and found elsewhere in the 

 West and South on lakes and rivers. 



Although it would seem that the supply of these wild grasses could 

 never fail of sufficing for the food of this and other curculios,f yet 

 conditions might exist in certain years and in particular districts, as 

 in this State in 18i)6-1868, when they would not bo available for the 

 di-posit of the eggs and subsequent feeding. Fur example : It appears 

 to be the habit of S. sculpdlis to make its attack upon corn just at or 

 below the surfiice of the ground. If unusual freshets or a very rainy 

 spring should flood the marsh, river and lake-shore grasses, the beetle 

 would be effectually excluded from its place of egg -deposit, just as the 

 peach-tree borer, ^yeria exitiosa Say, is prevented from laying its 

 eggs by a mound of earth of a few inches in height placed around the 

 base of the tree. Compelled to seek other grasses for oviposition, it 

 would naturally be attracted to Indian corn if growing in the vicinity 



*Tioga county, New York, where the depredations of this insect have been unusually 

 sevei-e, has the Susquehanna river on its southern border, and the lakes of Central New 

 York and these marshes to the northward. 



+Dr. Le Conte informs me that he has found different species associated in feeding on 

 the roots of a giass growing in sand liills near the ocean beach. 



