9 FARMERS’ BULLETIN 634. 
In the United States this borer is found almost universally through- 
out the South, from Maryland to Louisiana and westward to Kansas. - 
Among other localities it has been reported from Bennettsville, S. C., 
as destroying corn, especially that planted early in the season. From 
Waynesboro, Ga., in 1909, reports were received that in some fields 
the corn was “at least one-third destroyed”’ by an insect which later — 
proved to be this species. In Virginia it has been found recently at 
Nathalie, at Allenslevel, at Church Road, and at Farmville. In late 
October, 1909, Mr. E. G. Smyth found that nearly one-half of the 
cornstalks at Diamond Springs, Va., were infested, often as many as 
three larve being found in one stalk, boring from the surface of the 
ground down to the base of the root; and while the author has fre- 
quently found as many as a dozen larve in a single stalk, there are 
never more than two or three pups in the same stalk. In each case 
it had damaged the corn, and especially that planted early in the 
season. 
NATURE OF DAMAGE. 
Corn is damaged by these caterpillars in two ways. First, in the 
early part of the season, while the plants are small, they work in the 
“throat’’ of the young corn, and if the tender growing tip within the 
protecting leaves is once damaged, all chances that the plant will 
become a normal productive specimen are gone. In many sections 
of the South this is commonly known as “bud-worm”’ injury, and 
though there are several other insects which cause a similar mutila- 
tion of the leaf, a very large proportion of the so-called “bud-worm”’ 
damage may be charged to this insect. The effect of its work on the 
leaves of the young corn plants is similar to that resulting from attacks 
by the corn billbugs and is evidenced by the familiar rows of small 
circular or irregular holes across the blades of the plant (fig. 2). 
The other form of serious damage chargeable to this pest occurs 
later in the season. The larve, having then left the leaves and 
descended to the lower part of the stalk, tunnel in the pith. (See 
fig. 3.) If the larve are at all numerous in the stalk, their burrows 
so weaken the plant that any unusual strain will lay it low and 
destroy all chance of its maturing. While frequently ten or more 
larvee may live and mature in one plant, it must be remembered that 
any infestation, bowever light, will lessen in some degree the vitality 
of the plant and cause a corresponding loss in the quality and quan- 
tity of the harvest. 
: HABITS OF THE LARVA. 
Immediately upon leaving the egg in spring, the young larva of 
the first generation, spinning a silken thread behind it, wanders 
down into the throat of the plant as far as the water cr dew usually 
standing there will allow it to go, and begins to feed on the leaves, 
going back and forth through the yet unfolded clusters and soon 
