151 
and crowns of the plant, either eating the smaller roots or pene- 
trating and mining the interior of the crown and main root. These 
were usually confounded by fruit growers under the general name of 
“erown-borer;” but a cursory examination was sufficient to show 
that at least two insects were represented by them, one form, which 
occurred only in the crown and main rool, being destitute of legs, 
and the other, found most commonly in the earth about the plant, 
although sometimes penetrating the crowns from without, being 
always: provided with three short pairs of jointed legs on the seg- 
ments immediately behind the head. The first, o r footles s, form 
was the true crown-borer, (Tyloderma fragarie,) ane was fully dis- 
cussed in the last report from this office; and the second was evi- 
dently that known as the strawberry root-worm, to which Prof. Riley 
was the first to call attention. 
It was at first assumed that these root-worms represented but a 
single species; but actual breeding of specimens taken from various 
localities in Union county, and at different seasons of the year, has 
finally demonstrated the fact that they belong to three distinet, but 
closely related species, all members of the same family, beet 
melidz,) and of the same tribe (Zamolpini), but of different gener 
While the injuries inflicted by t these various root-worms aie ap- 
parently identical, their periods and life histories are somewhat 
different, and it will consequently be best to treat them separately. 
To save repetition, I give first the characters common to all three 
species, following these by a separate discussion of each. 
DISTINGUISHING CHARACTERS. 
The root-worms may be known from the crown- borer ee IX, 
Fig. 6, a), to which they bear a strong superficial resembiance, by 
the absence of jointed lees m the latter, as already Laue ‘and 
from young white grubs, (Plate VII, Fig. 1, 2) with which they are 
often asso eee in the ground, both feeding alike upon the root of 
the straw! berry, by their relatively shorter and thicker bodies, by 
the greatly inferior development of the abdomen, and by the fact 
that they are not Heel. as much arched from before backwards as 
the grubs. 
In the root-worms, the lensth is only about twice the breadth, 
while in white grubs of that size, it is four or five times as great. 
In the former the abdomen is but little longer than the head and 
thorax taken together, while in young white grubs it is at least twice 
as long. ‘The latter insects have also the vosterior half of the abdo- 
men somewhat swoilen, rounded and smooth, while in the root- 
worms the terminal sesments are smaller than the preceding, and 
are at least equally wrinkled and tubexculate. 
COMMON CHARACTERS. 
Larve. —The root-worms here treated (Plate VII, Fig. 7; and IX, 
Mie, 3.) are all of net wly the same size, 38 to 4 mm. long (12 to 
.16 inch) by half as wide, and al are white, except the head and 
first segment, which are pale yellowish brown. The segments are 
twelve in number behind the head, with a rudimentary thirteenth 
