SB 

 818 

 C578 

 ENT 



No. 16, SECOND SERIES. 



lited States Department of AgTiculture, 



DIVISION OF ENTOMOLOGY. 



THE LAIl(a:i{ CORN STALK-IJOlMMt. 



{!)((( trrca saccharalis Fab.) 

 GENERAL APPEARANCE AND METHOD OF WORK. 



A large white six-footed caterpiller, ordinarily with (hirk-hrown spots, 

 boring into the stalks of young corn, causing more or less distortion of 

 the plants and seriously reducing the "make." Later, the same larva 

 bores into old stalks, working down into the tapi-oot and passing the 

 winter in a channel at about 

 the surface of the ground or a 

 little below, transforming in 

 the spring to a brown moth of 

 the shape and size indicated 

 in the figure. 



DISTRIBUTION. 



This insect is identical witli 

 the sugar-cane borer of Louis- 

 iana and the West Indies. It 

 occurs all through the Southern 

 States, west to Kansas, and 

 north as Mar^dand along the 

 shore of the Potomac River. 

 is little doubt that it is the 



as far 



north 

 There 



same 

 insect which occurs at the present 

 time in sugar cane in the West Indies 

 and British Guiana, and there is some 

 reason to suppose that the same spe- 

 cies occurs in Java. Its distribution 

 from one sugar-growing country to 

 another in seed cane is an easy matter. 



NATl^RAL HISTORY AND IIAIUTS. 



The adult insect issues from the 

 old cornstalks in the spring. Soon 

 after the young corn comes up it laj's 

 its eggs upon the leaves near the axils, 

 and the young larva ui^oii liatching 

 penetrates the stalk at or near the 

 joint and commences to tunnel, usu- 

 ally upward through tlie pith. The growth of tlie borer is rapid and it 

 is verj^ active, frequently leaving the stalk at one place and entering at 

 another, making several holes in the course of its growth. When 

 ready to transform it bores to the surface of the stalk, making a hole 

 for the exit of the future moth, tlien cl'ianging to the i)upa state. 



Ki(i. 1— Willi; 111' the hirm'r corn stalk-borer: 

 ((. liciioral aijpoaranct' of stalk infested by 

 the early generation of borers; b, same, cut 

 (ipcii to stunv pupa and larval burrow. 



