54 
of adults. The next day the males were engaged either in pairing or 
feeding upon the Scirpus, but the females, when not paired with the 
males, had burrowed down into the earth, out of sight. 
On a second visit to the infested field, June 11, but few females were 
to be found above ground. The young corn was coming up well, but 
being rapidly destroyed by the males and a few females, except where 
Scirpus was growing in sufficient abundance to provide an ample sup- 
ply of food. 
Absence from home, from the middle of June until the middle of July, 
not only interrupted my observations, but a press of other work pre- 
vented my visiting the field again until August 21, both plants and 
beetles in pots having in the mean time died. 
As aresult of this last visit I found two adults, one of which was feed- 
ing on a small dwarfed stalk of corn and the other on Scirpus atrovirens. 
An examination of the root of this reed re- 
vealed full-grown larve (Fig. 1, a) and fully 
developed adults still within the bulbs. Other 
bulbous roots of the same plant gave evi- 
dence that the adult had only recently quitted 
its birthplace. Hurrying home, my plants in 
the flower pots, long ago dead, dried up and, 
as I thought, worthless, were examined and 
in nearly every one was found a fully devel- 
oped adult, none of which had escaped from 
the bulbous roots wherein they had devel- 
oped. (Fig. 2.) 
Still another visit to this field on August 
30 confirmed all previous observations, and 
a Single pupa was also found in a bulb of the 
Scirpus. 
From what is known of the habits of other 
species of this- genus, coupled with the fact 
Fic. 2.—Work of Sphenophorus that fields of. corn are not attacked by the 
ochreus in roots of Scirpus—nat- heetles after the first year following the 
er breaking of the ground, it seems highly im- 
probable that there should be more than one annual brood. This being 
the case, its life history will likely be as follows: The insect hibernates 
in the adult stage, coming forth from its hiding places in spring, the 
females depositing their eggs during May and June in the roots of 
Scirpus. The larve hatching from these develop to adults and emerge 
in about three months. 
From the vast differences existing between the plant in which the 
species breeds and that of the corn plant, the great improbability of 
the insect ever breeding in corn wiil at once be seen. The whole prob- 
lem of prevention seems to settle in the destruction of these reeds, 
root and stem, the season prior to devoting the ground to corn. The 
eggs are as a rule deposited in bulbs formed the preceding year, and 
ee. 
