82 Forty-first Report on the State Museum. 



by Professor Riley to verify this statement, which was at variance 

 with previous knowledge of the insect's habits, negative results were 

 obtained, as the beetles refused to eat tender leaves of corn, grape- 

 vine, clover, et cet., offered to them. 



The Beetle seen Feeding on Corn in the Ear. 



In August of 1882, Mi\ Pergande, of the Entomological Division of 

 the Dejjartment of Agriculture, while searching for injurious insects 

 on corn, near Washington, " saw several imagos and larvse of this 

 species actually eating into the soft kernels of the ear. The beetles 

 were almost entirely hidden within the nearly empt}^ kernels, and it 

 could plainly be observed that they were eating. Upon removing 

 them, the most careful observations failed to disclose any other insect 

 in the kernel. The larvae were found in similar situations, actually 

 engaged in eating the substance of the soft seeds." {American Natu- 

 ralist, for March, 1883, xvii, i^age 323.) 



In reply to my request made to the gentleman, Mi\ Sturges, of 

 Fairfield, Conn., who had sent the beetles, for additional information 

 in regard to their attack on his corn, he has written as follows: 



I send you herewith some ends of corn eaten, as I suppose, by the 

 bug. I at first thought that the damage was done by birds, but I 

 found the bug under the leaves, and I watched closely, and in every 

 ear I discovered some of these in the kernels. The corn was then in 

 the milk and the kernel soft. As the corn hardened the eating 

 stopped. 



I have found them in three j)ieces of corn, widely separated, and 

 also in my garden. All of the bugs that I sent you were taken out of 

 kernels. 



Its Manner of Feeding on the Corn. 



Twelve of the beetles were sent me by Mr. Sturges. The ends of 

 ears, of which there were a number, are eaten from two to nearly five 

 inches downward from the tip. The interior of the kernels is entirely 

 eaten, leaving only the outer shell, dried, black, and shriveled. Where 

 the injury has been the greater, it is seen to have extended by holes 

 eaten into the sides of the kernels adjoining the already eaten por- 

 tions, quite unlike an opening made by a bird, and, judging from 

 accounts, after the same manner of the like injury committed by 

 another corn-pest recently brought to light, viz., Diabrotica longicornis 

 (Say) — one of the Ghrysomelidce. 



The corn-eating propensity of the beetle is also confirmed by obser- 

 vations of Professor Forbes, given in the Fourteenth Illinois Report, 

 as follows: "Last August we saw it eating the exposed kernels at 

 the tip of the ear, hollowing out their substance, and partly buried 

 in the cavities thus made." 



