118 AMERICAN FERN JOURNAL 
curiously cut variety. It was apparently badly eaten 
by bugs, but upon examination we found that the 
subdivisions of the pinnules were untouched. Their 
outlines were without any sign of such attack. The 
serrations and indentations and the teeth were normal, 
not irregular as would have been the case if they had 
been eaten by bugs. We thought we had found a new 
hybrid. Later, specimens were identified as ‘Bug 
‘eaten specimens of D. Boottii.’”’ 
Meanwhile we had gone back to the place in the swamp 
where the specimen had been found and found the plant. 
Looking about we saw that there were several similarly 
marked plants of the same variety, so we dug up a root. 
Quite accidentally, so far as the result was concerned, 
I sliced the rootstock. In the middle of it I found a 
longitudinal channel, evidently bored by some bug. 
Not only so, we quickly found the bug itself. It was 
a white grub perhaps an inch and a quarter long. Its 
head was a lightish brown, and covered with what seemed 
like a hard shell. Along the sides ran a row of black 
hairs in tufts. 
Upon finding this we proceeded to dig up other speci- 
mens, five in all. All were marked alike, all evidently 
D. Boottii or some form of it and in every case we 
found not only the channeled rootstock but the grub 
within that had done the deed. Crossing the road into 
another piece of swamp perhaps three hundred feet 
away we found the same condition in one or two ferns 
that we picked there. 
_ Later in the month we found a similarly cut fern of 
the same variety in a piece of swamp a mile away. 
This specimen while showing the outward signs of in- 
jury to the rootstock did not seem to have been eaten 
in the same way. Nor did we find the grub. It was 
the only exception, however, to the presence of this 
borer grub, among those which we examined.—C. 8S. 
Lewis, Burlington, N. J. 
