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with their hoarse buzzing, and often invading lighted rooms in our 
houses, where they bump and bumble about, as awkward as frolicking 
cart horses. In this stage the insects are but short-lived, the males dying 
soon after the sexes pair, and the females living but a few days after 
they have laid their eggs in the ground. 
The young grubs hatching among the roots of grass or grass-like 
plants commence ‘to feed at once, and live in the earth in the larval stage 
for at least two years (so far as known), most of them changing to the 
dormant pupa from the middle of June to September of the second or 
third year after hatching, and becoming fully developed “June beetles” 
again, still in the earth, in August or in September of this same year. 
These beetles do not, as a rule, emerge from their earthen cells until the 
following spring, but spend the winter at rest, each in the underground 
cavity made originally by the grub while preparing to pupate. In May 
and June they come out and pair and lay their eggs as already related. 
A single species (Cyclocephala immaculata) has a ‘slightly different life 
history, the grub not pupating until spring. 
Our common and destructive white grubs all belong to the genera 
Lachnosterna and Cyclocephala, by far the greater number of species and 
individuals to the former genus; of which there are thirty-two species 
known to occur in Illinois. The genus Cyclocephala, on the other hand, 
contains but one species in this State. The life histories of these various 
kinds are not sufficiently different to make diserimination of species a 
matter of practical importance, and for economic purposes, consequently, 
the white grubs may usually be classed as one. 
No wholly, or even fairly, satisfactorv defence against them has yet 
been discovered, but in the contest with so abundant, so widespread, and 
so destructive an insect even imperfectly protective measures, or merely 
palliative ones, are worthy of the most careful attention. 'T the practice 
of the farmers of the Old World, where a contest against closely related 
insects of like habit has been waged from time immemorial, is not usually 
applicable to American agriculture, but may nevertheless become so as 
conditions gradually change with the denser settlement of this country 
_and a corresponding increase in the value of our agricultural products. 
I have consequently summarized the economic procedure of England, 
France, and Germany for the “cockchafer grub,” the “ver blanc,’ and 
the “engerling,’—the names by which the European “white grubs” are 
known in those countries respectively. 
INJURIES TO CORN AND OTHER VEGETATION. 
. The injuries of the American white grubs to corn may begin as 
soon as the roots of the young plant become large enough to attract the 
attention of a hungry insect, and may range—according to the age of 
the plant, the kind of weather, and the age and abundance of tne grubs 
—all the way from a slight and temporary retardation of growth to an 
immediate and complete destruction of all the corn. An early loss of the 
tap root exposes the plant to severe suffering by early drouth, and it is 
often so reduced in vigor from root injury that it fails to form brace 
roots at the proper time, and hence has so slight a hold upon the earth 
