es 
7 
just south of Columbus, Ohio, the same year. Reports from southern 
Ohio in 1904 indicate that the species is increasing in abundance in 
that region. 
FOOD AND OTHER HABITS. 
It has already been stated that corn is the only known host plant of 
the larva. The beetles show a disposition to feed on a variety of 
plants, but are more choice than the southern species. In the experi- 
ence of the writer and evidently of others also, the beetles, which are 
naturally pollen feeders, like other members of this genus, are partial 
to the blossoms of thistle (in which they deeply imbed themselves), 
sunflower, and goldenrod, and are less frequently found on cucurbits. 
It is probable that the beetles do some damage to corn by eating the 
pollen and gnawing the silk and tassels, thus preventing cross- 
fertilization and causing a partial blasting of ears. Other plants, also, 
are frequented for the sake of pollen, and the list includes ragweed and 
smartweed growing between hills of corn, clover, and some other plants. 
In late fall the beetles have the same habit as the twelve-spotted and 
striped cucumber beetles, of gnawing into ripe squash and pumpkin in 
the field, and they do some injury in this way. The plants attacked 
include bean, sorghum, and cotton, which are visited for pollen, and 
ripe apples, which are sometimes injured in the same manner as cucur- 
bits; and the beetles have been noticed gnawing the ears of corn, more 
particularly where they have first been injured by birds or grasshoppers. 
Since the beetles have been observed by Forbes to feed on fungi, 
blights, rusts, etc., there is no doubt that they do some harm, which 
has been positively ascertained to be the case with the striped cucum- 
ber beetle, in acting as conveyors of fungous diseases from unhealthy 
to vigorous plants. 
The species is credited with being single-brooded. The beetles occur 
normally in the field, like the Southern species, until November, sub- 
sisting upon such flowers and other vegetation as can be obtained at 
that time, and in open winters have been noted abroad as late as the 
middle of December, which is, in the writer’s opinion, proof positive 
that the beetles hibernate, but the observations of Messrs. Forbes and 
Webster indicate that as a rule the species passes the winter in the 
egg condition, in the earth. If this hypothesis is true it differs from 
the great majority of leaf-beetles. Eggs, so far as known, are deposited 
in fields of corn late in the season and hatch the following spring. 
Larvee have been seen in central Illinois the second week in June, and 
the beetles have been reported in southeastern Iowa toward the end of 
June. Forbes assigns the first weeks of August and October as the 
average times for the first and last deposit of the eggs, and recognizes 
a period of eight or nine weeks for the passage of a generation from the 
first to the last stage. The egg-hatching period is set from the middle 
of May to the middle of July and a little later. 
