19 



Sphenophorus cariosus Oliv. 



This bill-bug-, though not comtnon in our collections, has been 

 taken by us in central and southern Illinois from Pekin to Cairo. 

 It is primarily a southern species, abundant in the Gulf States 

 and injurious to corn in South Carolina. Through the kindness of 

 Mr. B. F. Johnson, of Champaign, I received in June, 1888, fifty liv- 

 ing-specimens of it from that state, with the information that it was 

 there very destructive to young- corn. Some of these beetles laid 

 eg-g-s in captivity June 4. 



In Illinois it has been taken but once on corn so far as I am 

 aware. May 1, 1891, Mr. John Marten, an assistant in my office, 

 found a specimen of it in Urbana at the base of a very young- 

 plant, where it had g-nawed a cavity in the stalk just below the 

 surface of the ground, and kept over nig-ht in a breeding--cag-e it 

 left the stalk and made its way into the seed kernel. 



The imag-o has been found by us at various dates from April 

 23 to September 16. The earliest specimens, collected at Cham- 

 paign April 23, 1892, were under boards and driftwood on wet 

 ground. May 1, 1891, a sing-le beetle was taken on very young- 

 corn at Urbana ; June 30, 1888, it was obtained from a deposit of 

 driftwood beside a creek ; and July 9 of the same year, from a sim- 

 ilar situation after a flooding- rain. July 26, 1892, it was brought 

 in from Savanna, in northern Illinois, among- collections made in 

 the Mississippi bottom ; and August 16, 1891, it was found on the 

 bank of the Ohio River near Metropolis. On the 23d of Aug-ust, 

 1899, a number of these beetles, recently transformed, were found 

 at Urbana, still in their underground pupal cells at the base of 

 stalks of Cyperus strigosiis ; and, finally, September 16, 1879, it was 

 obtained in the course of g-eneral entomolog-ical collecting- from the 

 bottoms of the Ohio River opposite Cairo, 111. It seems thus to be 

 essentially a lowland species, and probably breeds, like S. ochreus, 

 in coarse grasses and similar veg-etation of swamps and bottom- 

 lands. 



My knowledg-e of the life history of the species is based main- 

 ly on Mr. Marten's observations in 1889. On the 25th of July, 

 1889, four larvae which proved to be those of this species were 

 found in the stems of a larg-e sedg-e {Cypenis strigosiis) g-rowing- in 

 a corn field near Champaign. The larva were just at the crown of 

 the bulb, which they had almost completely excavated, the larg-est 

 of them having-, in fact, entirely cut off the stem, and lying- in a 

 cavity formed by the bases of the leaf sheaths. 



On the 29th of July others were found in the same situation 



