145 



group was made up almost wholly of the pistils and leaf tissues of grasses 

 except that pollen and fungus spores had been eaten by one specimen. 

 The six examples of oblongifolia had eaten only an insignificant quantity 

 of insect food, and most of the vegetation taken was derived from grasses 

 and grasslike plants. 



In placing her eggs the female of vulgare gnaws /.-;'n 



and breaks up the fibers of the hard crust of the stems 

 of weeds or of the uppermost joint of the corn plant 

 just beneath the tassel, making a roughened spot an 

 eighth to a quarter of an inch across (Fig. 134). The 

 elongate eggs are then inserted into the pith length- 

 wise of the stem, one or two above the opening and 

 the same number below, two to four in all. These 

 openings are made at short intervals in a slightly spiral 

 row along the stem, and the joint is often completely 

 riddled with them. In one field visited by us fully 

 one fifth of the stalks contained these eggs. 



Those and other marks very like them, made by 

 tree-crickets laying their eggs in stalks of corn, are 

 often noticed by farmers in fall, especially if horses 

 and cattle are suddenly attacked by disease while run- 

 ning in fields of stalks from which the corn has been 

 husked. Horses are especially liable to serious or even 

 severe sickness shortly after they have been turned 

 into a field of stalks, and in searching for the cause 

 the farmer sees the curious marks made by meadow 

 grasshoppers, and by tree-crickets also, in laying their 

 eggs. Specimen stalks so scarred have been sent to 

 me many times with the inquiry whether these eggs 

 are injurious to the health of animals. Under date of 

 November 11, 1898, Mr. W. B. Lloyd, editor of Farm, 

 Field and Fireside, of Chicago, wrote me: 



"The inclosed was sent to me by a subscriber at 

 Smothers ville. 111., with the statement that it was a section of a corn- 

 stalk filled with the eggs of an insect. He wished to know if they 

 were injurious to his stock, and what they would hatch out, stating 

 that the late corn was full of them, and that some in that locality 

 thought they were the cause of so many deaths among the stock in 



that section Will you please examine it and see if you can 



help me out in any way?" 



To this I replied: 



"The piece of corn-stalk which you send with yours of November 11 

 is like a great number which have come to me this fall from farmers 

 throughout the state with statements and inquiries similar to those 



Fig. 134. Orcheli- 

 mum vulgare, egg 

 punctures in stem 

 of corn tassel. En- 

 larged. 



