54 



of adults. The next day the males were engaged either in pairing or 

 feeding upon the Scirptis, but the females, when not paired with the 

 males, had burrowed down into the earth, out of sight. 



On a second visit to the infested field, June 11, but few females were 

 to be found above ground. The young corn was coming up well, but 

 being rapidly destroyed by the males and a few females, except where 

 Scirpus was growing in sufficient abundance to provide an ample sup- 

 ply of food. 



Absence from home, from the middle of June until the middle of July, 

 not only interrupted my observations, but a press of other work pre- 

 vented my visiting the field again until August 21, both plants and 

 beetles in pots having in the mean time died. 



As a result of this last visit I found two adults, one of which was feed- 

 ing on a small dwarfed stalk of corn and the other on Scirpus atrovirens. 



An examination of the root of this reed re- 

 vealed full-grown larvas (Fig. 1, a) and fully 

 developed adults still within the bulbs. Other 

 bulbous roots of the same plant gave evi- 

 dence that the adult had only recently quitted 

 its birthplace. Hurrying home, my plants in 

 the flower pots, long ago dead, dried up and, 

 as I thought, worthless, were examined and 

 in nearly everyone was found a fully devel- 

 oped adult, none of which had escaped from 

 the bulbous roots wherein they had devel- 

 oped. (Fig. 2.) 



Still another visit to this field on August 

 30 confirmed all previous observations, and 

 a single pupa was also found in a bulb of the 

 Scirpus. 



From what is known of the habits of other 

 species of this genus, coupled with the fact 

 that fields of corn are not attacked by the 

 beetles after the first year following the 

 breaking of the ground, it seems highly im- 

 probable that there should be more than one annual brood. This being 

 the case, its life history will likely be as follows: The insect hibernates 

 in the adult stage, coming forth from its hiding places in spring, the 

 females depositing their eggs during May and June in the roots of 

 Scirpus. The larvre hatching from these develop to adults and emerge 

 in about three months. 



From the vast differences existing between the plant in which the 

 species breeds and that of the corn plant, the great improbability of 

 the insect ever breeding in corn will at once be seen. The whole prob- 

 lem of prevention seems to settle in the destruction of these reeds, 

 root and stem, the season prior to devoting the ground to corn. The 

 eggs are as a rule deposited in bulbs formed the preceding year, and 



Fin. 2 



Work of Sphcnoplwrus 

 ochreus in roots of Stirpes— nat- 

 ural size (after Riley). 



