162 Notes on Insects. 



tliis spring, and on the 15th inst., I walked out with him to his 

 farm ; we first examined a patch of Indian corn^ or maize, about 

 1| arpents in extent; it was planted from 23rd to 28th May. The 

 soil of the field is a sandy loam, and was ploughed from grass 

 last stutmrm ; the plants were two or three inches high, but so 

 many had been killed, it had been sown over a second time on 

 the 8th June, and this last sowing had hardly sprouted at all. 

 As soon as we reached the field we perceived many plants looking 

 dead and withered, and set deeper in the soil than the healthy 

 ones ; on laying hold of these they instantly came up in our hands, 

 and we found them cut through about half an inch below the 

 surface of the ground ; many had been severed at the junction of 

 the stalk and the grain, and thus entirely destroyed ; some had 

 their tops cut off above ground, and the leaves eaten: these will 

 , probably shoot again; many stalks were only partially cut 

 through, but as the " worms " appear to eat out the heart of the 

 plants, they are as effectually destroyed as if eaten entirely through. 

 Inmost instances every plant in a clump or "hill" had been killed, 

 though sometimes one or two of the strongest had been left un- 

 touched ; in a portion, about twelve paces long, of one row, every 

 plant on every hill was destroyed. On removing the earth from 

 a,round the withered plants, we discovered a red-headed greyish 

 larva coiled up just below the surface of the ground ; we found 

 one or two in almost every hill which we examined, and which 

 showed any signs of their presence ; but in a few cases we did not 

 see any, probably having accidentally covered them up with the 

 soil, or perhaps they had shifted their quarters during the night ; 

 I did not find more than two or three in the same clump. In 

 about an hour we dug up between 60 and 70 larvae from two or* 

 three rows of corn, they varied in size from 5 fines long and 1 line 

 thick to IV lines long and 3 lines broad, but were generally about 

 8 lines long. The pumpkins sown amongst the Indian corn had 

 not been touched by them. Besides the " Cutworms" I found two 

 or three " Wireworms," the larvae of a coleopterous insect of the 

 genus Ulater, which were eating the seeds and stalks of the young 

 corn under ground. , We next inspected a patch of oats, 8 

 arpents in extent, in the same field, separated, however, from the 

 Indian corn by a deep but grassy ditch ; it had also just been re- 

 sown ; at a distance, large irregular patches of the field appeared 

 quite bare, and on looking at them closer we perceived that in 

 these spots almost every plant had been killed, and we found at 



