30 CEREAL AND FORAGE INSECTS. 



found to have practically eaten up the foliage of clover plai-ts, there 

 is reason to believe that this one may become destructive to the clover 

 crop in future years. 



Up to the year 1909 nothing was known regarding the habits of 

 this species in America. Adults were found by Mr. J. A. Hyslop, of 

 this Bureau, early in April, but as Mr. Hyslop was almost imme- 

 diately thereafter detailed to investigations on the Pacific coast, the 

 writer continued during the remainder of the year the life history 

 study begun by him and succeeded in following out the complete life 

 cycle. The writer is greatly indebted to Prof. F. M. Webster, in 

 charge of cereal and forage insect investigations in the Bureau of En- 

 tomology, for his kind direction of the work and for his assistance in 

 the preparation of the manuscript. 



HISTORY OF THE CLOVER-ROOT CURCULIO IN FOREIGN COUNTRIES. 



The clover-root curculio appears to be a native of Europe, origi- 

 nally described by Fabricius (1776) as Curculio hispidula and reported 

 by him as inhabiting aquatic plants in the neighborhood of " Kilia." 

 This description seems to have been drawn up prior to 1776. Later 

 Germar (1824) placed it in the genus Sitones and reported it among 

 others of this genus as occurring in meadows, along roadsides, and 

 under stones. 



In 1831 Stephens stated that the species occurred in abundance on 

 sandy heaths and moist meadows in some half dozen different places 

 in England. 



Schoenherr (1834) reported it as being found in northern and 

 temperate Europe. He also described a species found in " Tauria " 

 as S. hcemorrhoidalis, which was later, in 1864, determined by Allard, 

 in his " Classification of the Genus Sitones," as S. hispidulus of Ger- 

 mar. At this time Allard stated that S. hispidulus was very common 

 all over Europe, as he had received specimens sent by Motschulsky 

 from Holland, Hungary, Caucasia, Poland, central Russia, and east- 

 ern Siberia. From this and from Stephens's British report it will be 

 seen that it was even at that time widely distributed throughout 

 Europe, England, and parts of Siberia. This insect has not attracted 

 so much attention as an economic species in Europe as have others of 

 this genus, especially S. lineatus and S. puncticollis, but Brischke 

 (1876) made some interesting observations on its destructiveness to 

 clover in the vicinity of Dirschau, western Prussia. He found a 

 clover field there of one year's standing overrun by insects. The 

 leaves were badly eaten and the roots brown and dried up. Upon 

 digging up the earth, he found, among the various larva? and pupa?, 

 several larvae and a pupa of a Curculionid which afterwards proved 

 to be those of Sitones hispidulus. The larvae were found to feed on 



