THE ROUGH-HEADED CORN STALK-BEETLE a1 
rapidly and have become considerably darker than the elytra and 
are a deep purplish red. The elytra soon acquire the same shade. 
The final stage naturally is the transformation of this color into 
the deep black of the typical beetle. 
Under favorable conditions these color changes are completed in 
from four to five days, but in cooler weather the time required to 
effect them may be greatly extended. Thus, in October and Novem- 
ber, beetles were frequently found to retain their 
red coloration for a period of two or three weeks. 
ACTIVITY IN THE FALL 
The adults appear to be much less active in the 
fall than in the spring. So far as the writers are 
aware, there are no records of the beetles having 
been taken at lights during this season. At Tap- 
pahannock, in the fall of 1915, they were fre- 
quently observed on or immediately under the sur- "1 Lateral 
: view of male clas- 
face in the places where they had emerged. Al- per of uetheola 
most invariably they were to be found beneath jy" qfPs. best’ 
clumps of their favorite food plants, Paspalum 
spp., boring into and cutting off the culms of these grasses. The 
junior writer never observed any of the beetles outside of their 
natural habitat at this time of the year, but W. T. Emery, who vis- 
ited the breeding grounds of the species at Tappahannock in early 
November of 1916, reported that he had seen a small number crawl- 
ing on an adjoining highway. Mr. Emery states that the day on 
which these beetles were observed was unusually warm and mild, 
a circumstance which doubtless accounts for 
their wandering abroad. i 
HIBERNATION 
No systematic observations on the hiberna- 
tion of the beetles were made. So far as the 
available evidence goes, it indicates that 
hibernation takes place in the normal feed- 
ing ground of the species and in much the 
same manner as in other scarabaeids which 
pass the winter in the adult stage. On one 
occasion during the plowing of a timothy 
pasture at Tappahannock in February of 
Fic, 12,—Lateral view ot 1916, the junior writer picked up a few 
Se a ae ee beetles of this species. The depth at which 
Hontfa. Host Y they occurred could not have exceeded 8 
inches and was probably less. From the 
fact that some larvee reach maturity in cultivated fields, it is probable 
that many hibernate there, but they are insignificant in comparison 
with the much greater numbers that hibernate and emerge in the 
normal: habitat of the species. 
Experience with beetles kept in cages outdoors, during the winter 
of 1915-16, indicates a heavy mortality among the hibernating 
beetles during this season in the latitude of Virginia. At both 
Charlottesville and Tappahannock only about a third of all the 
