58 



THE COKN-BILL BUGS. 



(Sphenophokus sp.) 



Family Calandridce. Obder Coleoptera. 



(Plates I., II., and III.) 



The snout beetles of tlie genus Sphenophorus (popularly known 

 to some extent as "bill bugs") are gradually rising to prominence 

 as injurious insects,— corn especially suffering from them a serious 

 and often fatal injury which has long been known although but 

 little understood; and as the life histories and habits of the vari- 

 ous species are apparently very similar, others than those now 

 known to injure agricultural products will probably be added to 

 the list of noxious species. The essential facts concerning none 

 of these beetles are yet known in full, and a summary of existing 

 knowledge, new and old, which shall serve as a guide to further 

 observation, is undoubtedly a desideratum. 



The crops certainly more or less subject to the attacks of these 

 beetles are corn, wheat, oats, rye, timothy, and millet; and the 

 species found addicted to these injuries are eight in number; viz., 

 jyertmax, rohustus, jparvulus, cariosus, and sculptilis, previously 

 reported, and ochreus,^ placidus, and scoparms, whose habits are, 

 here for the first time described in entomological literature. 



• An item to the following effect appeared in various leading newspapers of the Mississippi 

 Valley, and in some eastern publications, in June and July, 1888: 



"The State Entomologist, Prof. S. A. Forbes, reports that he has discovered in the swamp lands 

 now l)eing rapidly drained and brought under cultivation, a destructive attack on corn by a native 

 innect not before recognized as injurious,— one of the snout beetles or "bill bugs'" {Sjihenophorus 

 orhrcus), of whose habits or history nothing has been hitherto ascertained. 



It now appears, however, that this insect feeds commonly on a large club rush {Scirim* fiuvkiUlis) 

 and the common reed {PhrMjmites commv//?/«),— plants which grow abundantly in the lowest marshy 

 prairies,— and attacks corn when planted on ground where tiiese grasses have been plowed up. 



The beetle is about half an inch long, clay-colored, and bears a long snout or jjroboscis, at thai 

 end of which is a pair of minute jaws. This'snout it thrusts into the stalk of corn or stem of grass 

 upon which it in feeding, chewing and swallowing the soft internal tissues of the nlant. Wliole field 

 ol corn have thus been dcHtroyed two or three times in succeHsion. The injury has not yet ceased, 

 as the beetles are bul just |»r»fparing to breed, and farmers have consequently bnen compelled t; 

 abandon their c<;rn and sow the ground to some later crop— such as millet or llax— supposed not t 

 be liable to injury hy this beetle. 



The habits of other beetles of itn kind indiciito that this species may succeed in breediuL' in th 

 stalks of corn, in which case it is liable to spread fnun itw i)reHPnt limited localitloh to corn fields at 

 large. It slioulfl receive, consecpH-nt ly, tluj clot-est and most intelligent attention of entomoloiristS 

 and fiu incrs It has not y«>t b«!en found seriously affecting corn the second year after grass, and its 

 wofht injuries can <ronsf'(iiiently he jjrevented l)y planting ground bearing reeds and large rushes, for 

 the llrnt y ar. to sonu; other crop than corn."' 



