1885. | Entomology. 891 
ENTOMOLOGY. 
A NEW SPECIES OF CRAMBUS INJURING Corn Roots.—On the 
7th of June, 1883, my assistant, Mr. Webster, who had been 
detailed to study the work of the black-headed grass maggot in 
corn fields, brought to the office some supposed cutworms, 
bristly reddish larvæ, which he had found gnawing the roots of 
corn below the surface, in fields in McLean county, on both old 
and new ground. 
They were not seen again during this season, but on the roth 
May of the present year I received the same species from Mr. E. 
Gastman, superintendent of public schools at Decatur, with the 
information that they had. been sent him from Harristown by a 
armer who reported that they were doing serious damage to the 
roots of his young corn. 
On the 27th May, I visited Dwight for the purpose of searching 
the fields of Mr. Mills from which the web worm had been sent 
me. The corn in this field was injured most in patches. Over 
one area of about one-fourth of an acre, many hills were missing, 
and fully one-third of those remaining were damaged, with a plant 
occasionally killed. Upon digging into the affected hills the cat- ` 
erpillars were found just beneath the surface, sometimes as many 
as five or six in a hill, each in a retreat formed by loosely webb- 
ing together a mass of dirt irregularly cylindrical in shape, one 
and one-half to two inches long, and about one-half an inch in 
diameter. The worm was found ina silk-lined tube within this 
mass (the tube not always perfectly constructed), which in some 
cases opened at the surface, its presence being indicated by a 
circular opening about the size of wheat straw, in the earth next 
a stalk of corn. 
The first attack upon the plant was made by gnawing the outer 
surface beneath the ground and above the roots. Occasionally the 
stalk was completely severed, as by a cutworm, but usually not, 
the larve showing rather a disposition to work upwards, eating a 
superficial furrow or burrowing lengthwise along the center of 
estem. In other parts_of the field, only here and there a stalk 
was attacked. The foliage was also frequently eaten, the lower 
leaf first and then the upper ones, the larva evidently leaving its. 
burrow for this purpose, The tips of the leaves were eaten off, 
or irregular elongate holes were eaten through them—probably at 
night, as I have never seen the larva abroad by day. Where the 
corn was largest, webbed masses of dirt were frequently found 
which contained no larvæ, a fact which I was at first inclined to 
Suppose indicated that the insect inhabiting them had transformed, 
€specially as the larve found were of quite uniform size and 
apparently full grown. I failed to find a single pupa, however ; 
and as our breeding experiments did not yield the insect for more 
a month, it seems more likely that these empty webs had 
