1901'.] White-gruSs and May-Beetles. 45'? 



were examined microscopically. Nearly 40 per cent, of all the 

 May-beetles taken had eaten nothing. This percentage was much 

 the highest for specimens taken early in the season, 62 per cent., for 

 example, for those caught before June 6. Probably most of these 

 empty beetles had just come from the earth and had not yet begun 

 to feed. Nearly all of those captured in the fields at lights which 

 had taken food had eaten the leaves of trees, as was shown by the 

 presence in their intestines of small pieces of leaves exhibiting the 

 netted vein-structure and other characteristics of the foliage of the 

 common trees of the vicinity. Only six specimens of about six hun- 

 dred dissected, had eaten the leaves of young corn. Five of these 

 specimens belonged to L. rugosa and the sixth to L. inversa. Four 

 additional specimens of L. rugosa were taken at Urbana directly 

 from corn while feeding on it. As these ten beetles represent only 

 about i^ per cent, of the whole number examined, the facts indi- 

 cated by them are of little economic significance except as going to 

 show that May-beetles, of these two species at least, emerging in 

 corn fields at a distance from trees too great to enable them to find 

 their more ordinary food, may nevertheless subsist on leaves of 

 corn. The same facts have been shown with reference to blue-grass, 

 and it seems probable that, in the absence of other food, beetles may 

 be able to live on the blue-grass of our pastures. With their actual 

 powers of flight and their strong disposition to assemble in trees at 

 night, not merely to feed but likewise to copulate, their ability to 

 feed on grass and corn seems to signify but little. Corn, oats, wheat, 

 clover, and grass fields were repeatedly examined in both Ford and 

 Champaign counties with a view to the detection of any injury 

 which might have been caused by these beetles. Occasionally at 

 Urbana, and more frequently at Elliott, corn plants were found 

 which, though uninjured in the evening, were partially eaten by the 

 next morning, and, as already mentioned, four May-beetles (L. 

 riigosa) were taken directly from the plants while feeding on them. 

 Dissection of these specimens showed beyond a doubt that they had 

 eaten the leaves of corn. Two hundred and sixty-two specimens of 

 this species were taken in 1906, 169 of them from poplar, 31 from 

 elm, and 62 from other situations, and only 9 of these had eaten 

 corn, as Siiown by dissection. 



Movements oe Migration and Dispersal. 

 As the larvae known as white-grubs never appear above ground 

 except by accident, and as they are sluggish insects, incapable of 

 rapid locomotion under ground, each is practically confined, so far as 



