THE GREEN JUNE BEETLE. 9 



injuring vegetable and other crops. The female beetles are strongly 

 attracted to humus, decaying plants, and manure for the deposition 

 of their eggs, but the larvae or grubs are often directly injurious to 

 plant life by chewing tender seedlings, stems, and rootlets, e. g., as 

 shown in Plate V, which illustrates injury to the root and stem of 

 cucumber. This chewing may be continued until the roots or tender 

 stalks become partially, if not completely, severed. The principal 

 injury, however, is due to the work of the grubs in the soil, where 

 they cause around the growing plants an upheaval, which disturbs 

 the root system mainly by depriving it of necessary moisture. Their 

 constant burrowing and tunneling under the earth in fields and gar- 

 dens also loosens the surface soil, causing it to dry out and become 

 porous, and retards the growth of shallow-rooted plants in much the 

 same manner. Where larvae as well as beetles are unusually abundant, 

 a similar effect is produced by the perforations which they make 

 in emerging and again in reentering the soil. (PL VI.) Many in- 

 stances of this nature are known and are here cited. 



An extreme form of injury recorded by Riley (20) is to the effect 

 that in the case of injury to celery the heart of the plant became 

 choked with soil thrown up by the larvae, and the acid excrement of 

 the larvae induced rot. 



Injury to lawns and putting greens is due, in the main, to the little 

 mounds of earth which the grubs leave on the surface of the soil, and 

 on the grass itself. These mounds not only disfigure the lawns and 

 greens but, in the case of the latter, which should be kept smooth, 

 they often deflect the golf ball. Here, also, the burrowing and tun- 

 neling, as in the case of attack to cultivated fields, cause the grass 

 to suffer from lack of moisture. Plate VII illustrates how lawns 

 may be disfigured by these mounds, which show plainly on the grass. 



INJURY BY THE GRUBS TO LAWNS AND CEREAL AND FORAGE CROPS. 



During September, 1902, Mr. E. M. Talcott reported injury by this 

 grub on the golf links of the Washington Golf Club at Rosslyn, Va. 

 The grubs were extremely abundant in that vicinity. They crawled 

 to the surface of the ground at night, and caused injury to the grass 

 by boring short distances just beneath the surface, throwing out 

 small amounts of earth, and making little hummocks of sufficient size 

 to deflect the golf balls and thereby cause considerable annoyance. 



October 1, 1903, Mr. F. W. Barclay, Haverford, Pa., sent mature 

 grubs with the statement that they did very considerable damage to 

 the greens and turf of the Merion Golf Club at that place. The 

 grubs were present in large numbers over an area of about 50 acres, 

 and seriously injured the turf, nearly ruining the putting greens. It 

 could not be noticed that the grubs ate the roots of old or growing 



