THE PRACTICAL ENTOMOLOGIST. 



61 



year since, the corn and wheat had been considerably- 

 injured. It probably does not grow to sufficient size from 

 the egg to be very destructive till the third year; but 

 whether this is its last year in the larva state seems un- 

 certain. — (From a letter by Sanford Howard, Esq., Secre- 

 tary Michigan State Board of Agriculture.) 



A few years back many meadows [in Missouri] were 

 injured and others ruined [by the White Grub] ; and from 

 the number of worms to be found in aft'ected meadows, it 

 •was su jiected of being the cause of the mischief. By 

 taking hold of the grass, the sod would peel oil' in great 

 flakes, exposing numbers of worms. But now, in addition, 

 to their depredations on meadows, they are destroying 

 whole fields of corn. I have seen fields where they have 

 destroyed the corn in patches over the iield for yards and 

 for rods around, leaving the ground bare as a travelled 

 road. They seem to destroy the taproot first, and after- 

 wards prey on the laterals. — (Letter from Huron Burt, of 

 Nine Mile Prairie, Missouri, printed in the Valley Farmer 

 November 15, 1865.) 



I am not aware of any recorded cases, other than 

 the above, where this insect has been known to at- 

 tack corn. Wliat, therefore, can be the reason why, 

 within the last few years, it should have increased 

 80 greatly in numbers, as to make a violent irrup- 

 tion upon a crop which has been largely grown 

 throughout the United States for time imme- 

 morial ? Why do we hear from the farmers year 

 after year more and more complaints of the damage 

 done by the "White Grub?" Why do the nurse- 

 rymen suffer from it much more grievously than 

 they used to do ? These questions are of great 

 practical interest; but, as in so many similar cases, 

 for want of the needful experfments they can at 

 present only be answered by guess-work. 



I suspect that the above phenomena are to be 

 either wholly or partially attributed to the intro- 

 duction of improved breeds of hogs in the place of 

 the old, slab-.sided, long-nosed prairie-rooters, and 

 to the passage of laws compelling people to keep 

 their hogs under fence instead of allowing them to 

 run at large. "The hog," says Mr. Emery of Chi- 

 cago, "in his natural state is a long, lean, cadave- 

 rous-looking animal, apparently as wild as when the 

 herd 'ran violently down a steep place into the sea.' 

 Their noses are in the ground wherever they can 

 be, and if perchance they find their way into the 

 lawn or pasture, it is soon full of unsightly spots 

 where the turf is overturned. That they obtain 

 anything from the earth of any value to them as 

 food, compared to the injury they do, is not gene- 

 rally believed." (Ayric. Report, 1863, p. 205.) 

 With all due deference to Mr. Emery's opinion, I 

 cannot believe that a gang of hogs would work hard 

 by the hour together, as I have often seen them do, 

 unless they got something to repay them well for 

 their labor. I used to suppose that they were after 

 the fleshy roots of such plants as the Aster, but I 

 have since seen them so often rooting in places 

 where there was absolutely nothing but clean blue- 

 gra.ss, that I am satisfied that it must be insects 

 which they are in search of, and probably amongst 

 other subterranean larva; the notorious " White 

 Grub." The point might be defiuitely and satis- 

 factorily settled by shooting a few specimens, when 

 they were actually engaged in rooting, and exa- 

 mining the contents of their stomachs. But what 

 private individual can be expected to destroy fifty 

 dollars worth of hogs, in order to solve a question 



which concerns the whole community of farmers as 

 much as his own individual self? 



So far is Dr. Fitch from doubting the fact, that 

 it is for the sake of the grubs and worms found 

 under turf that the hog roots it up, that he actually 

 recommends enclosing a gang of hogs by a tempo- 

 rary fence upon such portions of a meadow as are 

 badly infested by.,the " White Grub." {N. T. Rep. 

 II. § 76, p. 56.) " The propensity of these ani- 

 mals," he observes, " for rooting and tearing up 

 the turf, we are all aware is for the very purpose 

 of coming at and feeding upon the grubs and worms 

 which are lurking therein." I have little doubt 

 that Dr. Fitch is right here ; but still it is always 

 dangerous jumping to conclusions without any po- 

 sitive proof; and before basing a remedy upon a 

 fact, the truth of the fact itself ought to be first as- 

 certained by actual experiment. 



If we choose to allow, for argument's sake, that 

 hogs, when running at large, destroy the " White 

 Grub," it must be evident at once that any law for- 

 bidding hogs to run at large must have a strong 

 tendency towards causing the "White Grub" to in- 

 crease and multiply. Now within the last few years 

 such laws have very generally been passed in the 

 Western States, and moreover the old-fashioned 

 prairie-rooters have very generally been replaced by 

 improved breeds, which have not the same strong 

 and ungovernable propensity to turn up the soil. 

 Hence, putting this and that together, I am inclined 

 to infer, that the presence of the " White Grub" is 

 often to be attributed to the absence of the Hog. 

 If this theory be correct, we ought, as a general 

 rule, to find the "White Grub" most abundant and 

 most injurious in those districts of country, where 

 no hogs have run at large for a long series of years; 

 and scarcest and least injurious in those, where there 

 are many hogs running at large up to the present 

 day. 



But the undue multiplication of Noxious Insects 

 depends upon so many and such complicated causes, 

 that it will be always unsafe to generalize upon a 

 few isolated cases. ' With subterranean larva; more 

 especially, we know scarcely anything of their Na- 

 tural History, owing to their being hidden from our 

 sight in the very bowels of the earth. In the United 

 States there are at least a thousand distinct species 

 of insects, the larva; of which live under ground 

 and prey upon the larva; of root-feeding species. 

 But which Cannibal larva attacks which root-feed- 

 ing larva, nobody knows at present, and nobody is 

 very likely to know for some time to come. All that 

 we can say is, that there are at least a thousand in- 

 sects, some one or more of which may and very pro- 

 bably does prey upon the " White Grub" beneath 

 the surface of the earth ; and that the scarcity or 

 abundance of the "White Grub" in any particular 

 district may and probably often does depend upon 

 the abundance or scarcity of the particular insect 

 that preys on it. The scheme of the Creation is a 

 most complicated and a most wonderful one. A is 

 preyed upon by B, B by C, C by D, and so on to 

 the end of the alphabet, and you cannot increase 

 or diminish the numbers of any member of the 



