260 FIRST ANNUAL REPORT OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



— one of the grasses, and the one which, from tlie rich nutriment that 

 it affords, might be expected to be chosen in preference to all others, 

 when selection is to be made. 



Food-plants of Allied Species. 



The larvfe of many species of the Curculionidm are known to live 

 within the stems of growing plants — some within aquatic plants: 

 the habitat is so common that the species need not be enumerated in 

 illustration. On two occasions, Lixus rzibeUns Rand., was observed \i\ 

 large numbers, in the month of September and later, in a pond in 

 Massachusetts, clinging to the flowers and leaves of Polygonum amphi- 

 bium, under conditions which rendered it probable that the larvae had 

 lived in the submerged stems of that plant. Some of the beetles which 

 were upon the wing, alighted upon the boat of the narrator of the 

 above occurrence, as a resting-place, it may be presumed, in the absence 

 of other floating wood. 



Habits of an Allied Species. 



Of another species of the genus — Lixus concavus Say, its opera- 

 tions upon its food-plant are so much like those of S. sculptilis upon 

 corn, and, we believe, indicative of what is to be hereafter learned of 

 the method of egg-deposit of the latter, that we transcribe the ac- 

 count : — 



Lixus concavus Say, was found on the rhubarb or pie-plant, at Washington, in 

 the act of boring into the stalk of the leaves and depositing its eggs in the holes 

 thus made. On examining the plant, many of the leaves were found to be yellow 

 and faded. These injured leaves mostly contained eggs, and although no larvae 

 were found at the time, it is highly probable that the larva of this insect causes 

 considerable injury to the plants thus perforated, as an allied European species, 

 Lixus paraplecticus is stated to reside in the stems of Slum or water-parsnip. 

 (Glover : Mept. Commis. Agricul. for 1870, p. 71.) 



Sphenophorus Larvae Living in Corn. 



Mr. Glover (ibid., p. 68) mentions a Sphenojjhorus, sent to the 

 Agricultural Department several years previous, from South Carolina, 

 under the local name of " bill-bug." It was not scientifically deter- 

 minjed, and although a corn depredator, it is not probable that it was 

 this species, for in another notice by him of the " bill-bug or corn- 

 bug " in the Report of the Commissioner of Patents for 1854 — Agri- 

 culture, p. 67, which undoubtedly is an earlier notice of the same ex- 

 amples, the color of the beetle is given as " reddish-brown or reddish- 

 black," which would not apply to S. sculptilis; moreover the figures 

 given in plate 4, while approximately representing this species, do not 

 show the quite enlarged terminal joints of the antenna? which charac- 



