33 



The present season, however, we were somewhat surprised to receive 

 the same insect — IAgyrm rugiceps — from Mr. H. M. Houston, of Monroe r 

 Union County, North Carolina, accompanied by a letter written June 

 2, 1885, in which he stated that the insect was new to himself and Ms 

 neighbors, and that it worked just under the surface of the ground, cut- 

 ting into young corn with five or six leaves, working in as far as the 

 heart and killing the center blades without injuring the outside ones 

 or with out cutting the plant down. Fig. 1, Plate I, was drawn from 

 specimens working in sugar-eaue, but indicates precisely the method 

 of work in young corn. 



.Air. Houston gave no particulars as to the amount of damage being-; 

 done, and although he was written to for further information we did not 

 hear from him again, and the inference is that the beetles disappeared 

 without doing much damage. It was so well shown in Louisiana that 

 this species is capable of exceptional increase and corresponding injury 

 under favorable circumstances that it is not at all improbable that we- 

 have here the beginning of a serious damage to corn in North Carolina.. 



The life-history of this beetle is not known. The most careful search. 

 in the Louisiana sugar Melds in 1881 failed to show a trace of the larvae 

 or pupie, and it was judged probable that they bred in the surrounding 

 swamps. Until something definite is learned concerning the life-history 

 and larval habits, we can only •recommend as a remedy the use of fires 

 and trap- lanterns in the field, as the evidence of 1881 shows that tike; 

 beetle is strongly attracted to light. 



The Corn-root Web- worm an old Pest in Indiana. — Professors 

 Forbes' recent discovery of Crambus zeellus in Illinois, and his interests 

 ing article upon the species in the Fourteenth Eeport of the State E!w-- 

 tomologist of Illinois (1884), in which he treats it as an entirely new 

 pest (and such it is for all that has been published concerning it), ren- 

 ders the following letter from Mr. B. F. Ferris, of Sunman, Ind., re- 

 ceived through our Indiana agent, Mr. Webster, of considerable interest : 



" In the Indiana Farmer, of this date, I notice a communication from 

 yourself in regard to a i new corn pest,' and asking for information in 

 regard to them. They are not a new pest to me by any means. My 

 first experience with them was about thirty years ago. I had broken 

 up a field of 17 acres of sod, and planted it on the 1st of May in as fine 

 condition as I ever had a sod. Almost every hill came up, and I would 

 not have paid a very high x^remium to have been insured 50 bushels of 

 corn to the acre. But the com was not more than w r ell up before I no- 

 ticed that the cut- worms, as I thought, w r ere cutting it off. Upon ex- 

 amination, however, I discovered that they were not our common cut- 

 worms, but a small dark : colored worm that enveloped itself in a slight 

 web, just as you have described them, and for want of a name I called 

 them 'web-worms,' and they are known by that name in this neighbor- 

 hood at this time. As a result, they entirely destroyed my field of 

 corn, with the exception of about an acre or so at each end of the field, 

 17334-No. 12 3 



