1889.] Entomology. 1 1 05 
This report is illustrated by six magnificent Heliotype plates, made 
from drawings by Mrs. A. M. Westergren. Ten species oi Sphenopho- 
rus and nine species of cut-worms are figured. It is needless to say 
that the character of these reports renders them indispensable to every 
working entomologist. — C. M. W. 
Observations on the Plum Curculio.— In a paper read before 
the Iowa Academy of Sciences, and reported in the proceedings, Prof. C. 
P. Gillette concludes that the Plum Curculio is not wholly or even largely 
double-brooded, at Ames, Iowa. The following observations are re- 
corded : Egg-laying began about May 25th, and practically ceased 
by the last of June. Eggs began to be deposited in considerable 
numbers about July 20th. Unhatched eggs were found constantly 
from July 2 2d to August 2 2d. The number of eggs laid after July 
20th on trees, where counts were made, was over one-fifth as great as 
the number laid before that date. The beetles reared from early- 
stung plums began appearing in the breeding cages as early as July 
22d. Beetles were seen pairing July 22d. The eggs of late punctures 
hatch as well as any, and the larvae develop in the plums. 
The Corn Root Louse. — In the fifteenth report of the State 
Entomologist of Illinois, Professor Forbes reports that the winter history 
of this species has been made out for the first time. "The eggs are 
collected from the ground in autumn by the common brown ant, Las- 
ius alienus. Early in the spring, before corn is planted, the young 
lice, as they hatch, are placed on the roots of ' pigeon grass ' {Setarid), 
smartweed {Polygonum), and possibly some other weeeds, and are 
reared there until the field is planted to corn — if this be done— when 
they attack the corn-roots, or the subterranean part of the stem. If 
the field is planted to some other crop, the young lice mature on the 
grass-roots, and produce a second brood, many of which acquire wings 
about the middle of May, and then disperse. Later they seem to 
abandon the grasses entirely." In the sixteenth report of the same 
series. Professor Forbes speaks of this root louse as Aphis maidisf 
Fitch. The interrogation point apparently indicates a doubt in the 
author's mind as to the identity of the root and aerial forms of the 
Aphis infesting corn,— an identity which has been heretofore assumed 
by nearly all writers upon the subject, with very little rea.son for so 
The conclusions above quoted, which rest upon positive observations 
made in the field through several seasons, are entirely different from 
those reached by Mr. F. M. Webster, from observations largely of a 
