THE SLENDER SEED-CORN GROUND-BEETLE. 



21 



been taken from a single kernel, some with part of their bodies pro- 

 truding from the opening (fig. 11). Sometimes the young plant 

 may push through the earth to the surface of the ground and then 

 die, owing to the fact that the kernel has been destroyed and the 

 root system has not developed sufficiently to support it. A plant 

 with two leaves, that has the kernel entirely destroyed, is shown in 

 figure 12. 



RECORDS OF DEPREDATIONS. 

 EARLY RECORDS. 



The first record of the plant-feeding habit of this species was in 

 1890, a from Whitley County, Indiana, where germinating seed corn 



Fig. 12.— Work of the slender seed-corn ground-beetle. Reduced. (Original.) 



was found to be attacked, the beetles starting their work at the germ. 

 This corn was planted on black, swampy soil. 



In 1900 Dr. S. A. Forbes 6 states: "This little ground-beetle, about 

 a quarter of an inch long, * * * may receive mere mention as 

 a beet insect, having once been seen by us in small numbers enlarging 

 a small excavation on the petiole of a beet leaf. The same species 

 had previously been seen burrowing freely into seed corn in the 

 ground." 



Five years later Prof. R. H. Pettitt, of the Michigan Agricultural 

 College, reported the same character of injury to seed corn from the 



a Insect Life, vol. 3, p. 159. 

 99370°— Bull. 85—11 3 



&Bul. GO. Univ. 111. Agr. Exp. Sta., p. 4S4. 



