THE COLASPIS ROOT-WORM. 



( (o/(ispis hrunnca Fabr. ) 



The Colaspis root worm is the g-rub or larva of an insect long- 

 known as injurious to horticulture in its adult stage, eating- the 

 leaves of the g-rape, strawberry, apple, pear, and other fruiting- 

 plants, and as a larva feeding- on the roots of strawberries. The 

 beetle has been known in horticultural entomology as the g-rape- 

 vine Colaspis (Riley), and inconsequence of its injuries to strawberry 

 roots the larva has been called the strawberry root-worm (Forbes). 

 We have had no reason until quite lately to include this spe- 

 cies in the list of the insect pests of agriculture, althoug-h minor 

 injuries done by the beetle to clover, buckwheat, beans, potatoes, 

 beets, etc., have been noted and reported by entomolog-ists; but the 

 discovery in June, 1900, that the larva is capable of doing" great 

 damag-e to joung- corn by the destruction of its roots has made 

 this insect an object of considerable interest to the g-eneral farmer. 



Injuries to Corn. 

 Our first knowledg-e of this feature of its feeding- habits is due 

 to an inquiry, accompanied by specimens of the larva, addressed to 

 me in June, 1900, by Mr. John T. Watkins, a farmer living- near 

 Grig-g-sville, in Pike county, in the west-central part of the state. 

 In consequence of his letter two visits were made to his neig-hbor- 

 hood by an office assistant, Mr. E. B. Forbes, on the .'3d and 28th 

 of June, 1900. From Mr. Forbes's notes it appears that parts of 

 several corn fields near Pittsfield, lying-in various directions from 

 town, from the southwest to the northeast, were more or less dam- 

 ag-ed, and that a few of them were in decidedly bad condition. In 

 the first field visited, for example, the corn did not averag-e over 

 eig-hteen inches hig-h, althoug-h in adjacent fields on similar soil it 

 would reach to the waist. Many injured plants were not more than 

 six or eight inches hig-h, and the lower leaves of these were dry 

 and brown. In another field the heig-ht of the uninjured corn was 

 about five feet, but in large irreg-ular spots — some of them two or 



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