22 BULLETIN 333, U. S. DEPARTMENT OP AGEICULTUEE, 



and the joints were simply shells. The tops of the plants attacked 

 were dying. The termites seemed to prefer the pith. Some of the 

 colonies were quite large and had attacked two or three stalks in one 

 hill. On the 12th of August termites were active in five different 

 cornfields. They had not attacked many plants in any area, but had 

 severely bored those that were attacked, great hollows having been 

 made by them. Some of the injured stalks had been previously 

 attacked by /Sphenophorus maidis Chittn., or other insects, but not 

 all of them. The insects seemed to enter at a scar or break about 

 the roots ; none were above the ground. On the 22d of August Kelly 

 found that quite a number of corn plants had been attacked by these 

 insects and that the stalks were mere shells, having had the pith 

 removed. No serious injury appeared to have been done to the 

 plants, because most of them were small. By September 6 the corn 

 plants were getting quite dry and the termites seemed to be increas- 

 ing. In a cornfield on one farm there were numbers of attacked 

 plants. This field was an old prairie field and had been planted to 

 corn the year before. There were no decaying stumps or wood of any 

 kind in the field, and the termites evidently subsisted on the cultivated 

 crop. On October 14, 1910, the termites were still active, burrowing 

 in the dry cornstalks. A colony dug out contained thousands. The 

 ground was filled with their burrows. Their nest did not seem to 

 be anything but a series of burrows with young larva?, etc., here and 

 there all through them. On November 26 the termites were still 

 burrowing in the stalks. On February 15, 1911, with the tempera- 

 ture at 75° F. and the ground quite warm at noon, there was a swarm 

 in a cornfield, along roadsides, and even from sidewalks in the city 

 limits. On May 9 many termites were found in a cornfield that was 

 planted to corn the year before ; nine young plants had been injured. 

 Single dead stalks sometimes contained 32 termites. 



Similar damage to a living corn plant about 1 foot high, tunneled 

 by white ants and not previously injured, was found by J. J. Davis 

 on June 18, 1915, at West La Fayette, Ind. 



H. E. Smith states that on May 8, 1913, in a field of corn 1^ miles 

 northwest of Mulvane, Kans., he found that this species 1 had eaten 

 all the seed before germination in about 6 feet in the row, and they 

 were apparently working straight down the row. No others could 

 be found in the field. 



DAMAGE TO NURSERY STOCK. YOUNG PLANTATION STOCK, AND VINEYARDS. 



There are numerous records of termite injury to young fruit and 

 nut-tree seedlings in nurseries, to other nursery stock, and to young 

 trees planted in recently cleared ground or soil rich in humus. The 



1 Leucotermes sp. (probably luclfugus). 



