95 
THE LARGER CORN STALK-BORER.* 
( Diatrea saccharalis F. ) 
By L. O. Howarp. 
The attention of English-speaking people was first called, in ascientific 
way, to the ravages of a lepidopterous borer in sugar-cane by the Rev. 
Lansdown Guilding in his account of the insects infesting the sugar- 
cane, in the Transactions of the Society of Arts, 1828, vol. XLVI, pp. 
143-153. He described the insect as Diatrewa sacchari, and for his 
paper, which comprehended also an account of the sugar-cane and palm 
weevils, he was awarded the gold Ceres medal of the society. His 
studies were made in the island of St. Vincent in the West Indies, and 
trom its occurrence there at this early date, and from Guilding’s state- 
ment that it had been long known, there is reason to suppose that the 
insect may be an indigene of South America or of the West Indies, 
where the cultivation of sugar-cane was first begun in America. 
In 1856 a select committee, appointed to investigate the damage 
caused by the cane borer in Mauritius, reported through W. Bojer, and 
the insect, which is called in the 
report Proceras  sacchariphagus, 
was treated at some length, and 
an account was given of its intro- 
duction into the island. In the G7 : 
same year Westwood reviewed this Leda MMS 
report at length in the Gardeners’ Botti 
Chronicle of July 5, gave a wood- 
cut of the insect, and pointed out 
that it was probably identical with 
the species described by Guilding 
at St. Vincent. He also called at- 
tention to the fact that the species 
named many years previously by Fie. 2.—Diatrea saccharalis: a, female; b, wings 
Fabricius as Phalena saccharalis gr analen: ¢, pupa; enlareod (oneal): 
is probably the same thing. This insect was described by Fabricius 
(Entomologia systematica, vol. 111, part 2, p. 238), from South America, 
no more definite locality being given. The probabilities are, how- 
ever, that he refers to Dutch Guiana on account of the early settle- 
ment of that country and from the fact that he refers to a figure of the 
larva by Myhlenfels. He makes the statement that it feeds in sugar- 
cane, perforating and destroying the stalks and becoming a pest in 
plantations. He describes the larva as six-footed, of a pale hyaline 
color, and with the head and eight spots brown. The larval descrip- 
tion, however, is drawn up froma figure by Myhlenfels, which may have 
_ *Read before the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science, Washington, 
p Aug. 17, 1891. 
