TERMITES IN THE UNITED STATES. 21 



full of white ants. 1 In every case, however, the stalk showed that it 

 had been attacked first by the larger corn stalk-borer (Diatrcea sac- 

 charolis Fab.) and drilled about the base. It could not be deter- 

 mined whether the plant was dead when the white ants attacked it 

 or whether they killed it. The stalk was drilled out and hollowed up 

 to about 10 inches from the ground. The plants when killed were 

 about 2 feet high. On October 30 Ainslie again found many stalks 

 of corn full of white ants. The stalks which contain the termites 

 can be ascertained as soon as touched. In most cases the entire 

 inside has been eaten out, leaving a thin shell with a plug of un- 

 touched pith at the top. The stalk was usually entered at the bottom, 

 underground. No forms but workers could be found. About 5 per 

 cent of the stalks were infested, and each one contained from 5 to 75 

 workers. 



Ainslie states that at Hurricane Mills, Tenn., June 19, 1912, in a 

 field of young corn, numerous plants were found with these insects x 

 mining in the ground and even up into the stalks. In most cases 

 there was evidence to show that the termites had been attracted by 

 some previous work of another insect and had merely kept on and 

 enlarged the holes already started. These plants, by their dwarfed 

 and deformed appearance, usually indicated the nature of the pre- 

 vious work. However, some plants were found which had been in- 

 jured solely by these white ants. The plants were healthy and normal 

 except for a wilting of the central leaf or two. The termites had cut 

 smoothly elliptical holes into the stalk just below the surface of 

 the ground, but these holes were too far above the roots to be those 

 of any kind of " budworm." "Within the holes the termites had exca- 

 vated upward, taking the central core cleanly out, so that the ampu- 

 tated leaves would almost fall out in the wind. The colonies were 

 not large, and it may be that the insects worked through passages 

 from one central nest. This ground had been cleared many years 

 and there were then no stumps or other rubbish in the field. (PI. 

 IX, fig. 2, shows the manner of injury.) 



Similar injury to the stalk and taproot of corn has been recorded 

 by several others in the field in North Carolina, Tennessee, and Ala- 

 bama, the injury sometimes being primary, all castes being found in 

 the stalks, and the insects apparently making permanent habitations 

 in the plants. Termites breed in the stubble in the autumn, winter, 

 and early spring, and later sometimes attack the young plants or 

 the seed. 



In Kansas E. O. G. Kelly made observations indicating similar 

 injury to corn in the field. At Wellington, Kans., on August 8, 1910, 

 he states that several colonies of termites 2 were burrowing in corn- 

 stalks. Some of the stalks had been bored for three to four joints, 



1 Leucotermes flavipes. 2 Leucotermes sp. (probably lucifugus). 



