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remain in the roots, however, imtil the following spring, feeding mean- 
while, when they are not dormant. 
In Ohio, according to Wehster, larvge and adults can be found at 
almost any time of the year, tho the beetles are rare in July. Pupse 
are most common in July, but occur in August and even up to the mid- 
dle of November, and a few pupae, newly formed, are met with in early 
spring. Eggs have been found as late, or as early, as September 18 in 
Michigan. 
Most of our articles on this insect have simply been based on the 
excellent accounts that Riley, Webster, and G. C. Davis published, and 
the species needs more study than it has received. 
Here in central Illinois the life history and habits are as Webster 
found them to be in Ohio. 
September 9 a pair of the beetles were observed /;/ coitii in one 
of our cages. The conditions were not quite natural, however, for I 
had taken the beetles from roots and put them on potted clover; out- 
of-doors they probably would not have left the roots until spring. As 
soon as they were placed on the plant, September 8. they began to 
burrow into the crown; they mated the day after; October 3, a long 
burrow was found, containing several larvse at its lower end, but no 
eggs; one of the parent beetles was still alive on November 21. 
Only one natural enemy of the clover root-borer has been put on 
record — a telephorid larva, probably Telcplwrus bilineatus Say, men- 
tioned by Riley as preying on the larva of the borer. 
Control. — A badly infested field should be plowed as soon as pos- 
sible after the removal of the hay crop, in order to starve the grubs by 
drying out the roots. The plowing must not be delayed, for early in 
July (latitude of Ohio, Webster) the larvse begin to pass into the qui- 
escent, or pupa, stage, in which they take no food; then they would 
doubtless transform and emerge as beetles in some numbers in spite 
of plowing. 
In Ontario, Can., the value of clover as a green fertilizer is so 
generally appreciated that the farmers do not hesitate to plow the 
clover under at the first signs of the presence of the root-borer. 
(Fletcher.) 
Another thing: Red clover should not be permitted to straggle 
along after the second year to furnish a nursery for this pest and 
others. 
Fertilizers do not kill the root-borer and will not save the plant — 
so Mr. G. C. Davis concluded from his experiments with nitrate of 
soda, muriate of potash, and kainit. Generally speaking, fertilizers as 
used against a root-feeding insect act more by stimulating the plant 
than by afifecting the insect directly. 
Hylastinus obscurus Marsh. 
1879. Riley, C. V.— Rep. [U. S.] Comm. Agr., 1878, pp. 248-250. 
1880. Lintner, J. A.— Thirty-ninth Rep. N. Y. State Agr. Soc, 
1879, pp. 41, 42. 
