THE ROUGH-HEADED CORN STALK-BEETLE 15 



Parish, La., and St. Francis County, Ark., corn on clay soils was 

 damaged by the beetles. Sherman (11, p. 44) records observations 

 of the same character in North Carolina. 



In the unpublished records and correspondence of the bureau, ad- 

 ditional observations to the same effect are recorded. One cor- 

 respondent stated that at Dalton, Ga., corn attacked by the beetles 

 was most severely injured in land that had been in meadow and 

 pasture. Another correspondent, of Eutaw, Ala., reported them as 

 doing considerable damage to corn in bottom lands. 



Some very interesting observations along the same line have been 

 recorded in his field notes by George G. Ainslie, who investigated an 

 outbreak of the beetles in western Tennessee and Kentucky. In a 

 field at Savannah, Tenn., which he examined, Ainslie observed that 

 the greatest damage to corn was in the lowest part of the field. At 

 Milan, in the same State, he notes that the beetles were most abun- 

 dant in the lower and moister areas, while at Guthrie, Ky., he found 

 that the greatest injury had been done in a field which adjoined a 

 boggy spot overgrown with large sedges, rushes, and grasses. 



While the majority of observers agree in reporting the species as 

 most numerous in heavy, moist soils, Comstock (3, p. 238), on the 

 contrary, states that in the sugar-cane plantations of Louisiana the 

 injury inflicted by the beetles is confined to those sections in which 

 the soil is of a sandy, friable character, and is lacking in those where 

 it is of a heavy, alluvial type. 



In the vicinity of Tappahannock, it was found breeding in a num- 

 ber of more or less scattered stations, each of which was examined 

 with regard to location, type of soil, and character of vegetation. 

 These situations were, without exception, confined to the lower, 

 nearly level lands which border the Rappahannock River and which 

 represent a former flood plain. 



One of the breeding grounds most thoroughly studied at Tappa- 

 hannock was the old pasture frequently mentioned in the foregoing 

 pages, and known as " Coghill's pasture." This pasture included 

 about 20 acres, the greater part of which consisted of a rather heavy 

 clay loam of a dark gray or slate color, and was about 2 miles back 

 from the river. It had not been cultivated for at least 25 years and 

 undoubtedly was of a marshy or swampy nature formerly, being 

 considerably lower than surrounding cultivated fields. Many of the 

 lower spots of this pasture had a thick cover of grasses under which 

 was a thin layer of vegetable mold, where, as previously stated, many 

 larvae of Euetheola rugiceps were found. 



The vegetation covering this tract was chiefly composed of species 

 of grasses and sedges, the most abundant of which were those belong- 

 ing to the following genera : Panicum, Paspalum, and Fimbristylis. 

 There were heavy growths of Japan clover (Lespedeza striata) in 

 j)] aces; in the moistest spots were numerous tussocks of the tall rush 

 (J uncus effusus). 



A second pasture about 2 miles southeast of Tappahannock re- 

 ciuhled Cognill's pasture in all essential respects. It joined a wood- 

 land locally known as White Oak Swamp, and was really reclaimed 

 swamp, so the junior writer was informed. Larvae were plentiful 

 here, also, under the heavy growths of Ptmpalmim, laeve. 



A third breeding ground was in a pasture close to the Rappahan- 

 nock River, bordering a tidal marsh, This pasture was quite low, 



