10 



except where two coarse g-rass-like plants were abundant, the com- 

 mon reed, Phraginites communis^ and the club-rush, Scirpiis jluviat- 

 ilis. An examination of these plants showed an injury to both 

 which was precisely similar to that done to corn, but affected the 

 wild grasses much less seriously than the cultivated plant. The 

 injury to the reed had apparently ceased, but the club-rush in un- 

 broken sod adjacent was still infested, the beetles being- there 

 found at the upper part of the plant piercing the terminal row of 

 leaves and eating out the interior as in corn. None were on these 

 wild plants growing in the plowed fields, the beetles apparently 

 preferring the corn as food. 



In a field separated from the foregoing by two or three rods of 

 sod, and bearing now its second crop of corn, no appreciable dam- 

 age had been done by these beetles, and here the reeds and rushes 

 were wanting, having been completely killed by the second year of 

 cultivation. 



The sexes were pairing at this time, but no eggs were discov- 

 ered by a careful search of punctures and excavations in all kinds 

 of injured plants. 



On another farm, occupied by Mr. Dennis, a field of fifteen 

 acres of corn was even more seriously injured This also had been 

 broken up the same spring, and the reeds and rushes were very 

 abundant in the lower ground, growing up through the sod. In 

 such situations the corn had been completely destroyed, although 

 replanted several times. 



In still another field, two miles away, belonging to Mr. Sulli- 

 van, which had been broken from sod that spring, no damage by 

 bill-bugs had been done, but in this field, which had been used as 

 a pasture for several years, neither reeds nor rushes had grown. 



July 27, 1888, these same farms were visited by an assistant 

 of the office, Mr. John Marten, who found the bill-bugs still pres- 

 ent in small numbers and injury still in progress, although evi- 

 dences of fresh work were few. 



In a field of a hundred and fourteen acres, belonging to Mr. 

 Dennis, eighty acres had been sown to millet after the destruction 

 of the corn, a pulverizer being used to prepare the ground. Here 

 the millet had been considerably injured — the lower part of the 

 stem punctured by the beetle and cut off with the effect to 

 kill the plant. In parts of the field the damage thus done amount- 

 ed to eighty per cent, of the yield, although the plants had rallied 

 to some extent by throwing out new shoots from the root. Even 

 the fox-tail grass ( Setai-ia ) had been similarly attacked to a smaU 

 extent, and with the same result. 



