aid 
borer upon the plantation of Dr. J. B. Wilkinson, some 40 miles south 
of New Orleans on the Mississippi River. Dr. Wilkinson informed me 
that in 1857 they were very abundant in the Lower Mississippi, and 
that the crop upon one plantation was utterly destroyed, the cane 
breaking to pieces as they attempted to cut it. A summary of the ob- 
servations which I made at that time was published in Special Report 
No. 11 of the Department of Agriculture, and in the Annual Report 
for 1880, pp. 240-242. 
The life history as then ascertained is briefly as follows: In early 
spring the parent moth lays her eggs upon the leaves of the young cane 
near the axles and the young borer penetrates the stalk at or near the 
joint and commences to tunnel, usually upwards, through the soft pith. 
The larval growth is rapid and the borer is active, and frequently 
leaves the stalk at one place and enters at another, making several 
holes in the course of its growth. When ready to transform, it bur- 
rows to the surface, making a hole for the exit of the future moth, and 
transforms to the pupa state. There are several generations in the 
course of a Season and the insect hibernates in the larval state within 
the stalks. 
It must be a number of years since what is apparently this same 
insect first transferred its attentions in part from sugar-cane to corn, as 
it is figured upon one of Glover’s unpublished plates as “injuring 
maize in South Carolina.” In July of 1881 specimens of the insect were 
received from Abbeville County, S. C., and were studied at the Divi- 
sion of Entomology. The considerable damage which was done in that 
locality was treated in the Annual Report of the Department of Agri- 
culture for 1880, pp. 243-245. It was also received about the same time 
from Lincoln County, Ga., where the damage to the corn crop was esti- 
mated by a correspondent of the Department at from 10 to 25 per cent. 
Late in the summer of 1881 I was sent by Professor Riley on a trip 
through South Carolina and Georgia, principally to study rice insects, 
but also to give some attention to the smaller corn stalk-borer (Pem- 
pelia lignosella). I then incidentally found the work of this larger borer 
in an extensive field near Atlanta, Ga., and very abundantly near 
Columbia, 8. C., upon the plantation of Mr. James Sims. It was there 
the exception to find a stalk which had not one or more holesinit. The 
work of the late broods had not apparently injured the “ make” very 
much, and frequently a stalk which had contained several larve bore 
its full and hard ears of corn. The early weakening of the stalk was 
what had proved destructive. The worm seemed never to deform the 
stalk, and the larva was almost invariably found above ground in the 
first three sections. I found one stalk, for instance, which in these 
three sections was riddled by no less than thirty holes and the center of 
which was completely eaten out. According to my observations in that 
locality, the insect was confined to high ground, and no trace of it was 
‘found in the cornfields” along the Congaree River, where I studied 
| Bill-bug damage to the corn crop. 
7 
