71 



"Enclosed is a bug, found on corn plant below surface of ground. 

 Eats into plant when leaf appears above ground. Leaf crossed by- 

 parallel rows of holes. Find beetles on every plant on an acre or 

 two of corn planted on fall plowing Avhere oats grew last year. 

 Looks as if they were about to destroy the corn entirely. Ground 

 dry, sandy, and tiled every 100 feet." 



In a subsequent letter Mr. Carter informed me that some five 

 to ten acres of his corn was being destroyed by these beetles. 



S. cariosus, reported by Glover as injurious in New Jersey, was 

 received by me, June 4, 1888, from South Carolina, through Mr. 

 B. F. Johnson, of Champaign, with the information that it was 

 very destructive to corn in that State. Every one of about fifty 

 specimens collected from the field by Mr. Johnson's correspondent,, 

 was of this species. 



NATURAL ENEMIES. 



No insect parasites or evidences of contagious disease have ap- 

 peared in our studies of these insects,* and, so far as we now 

 know, birds are their only natural enemies. Turkeys and chickens 

 are reported by Glover and others to feed upon them, and I have 

 found them also in May and June in the stomachs of four species 

 of birds, — the catbird, the brown thrush, the field sparrow, and 

 the black-throated bunting.f The numbers taken by these species 

 must be insignificant, however, except possibly the last, which is 

 a very common bird of our meadows and pastures, and may afford 

 some appreciable protection to the cultivated grasses. 



EEMEDIES. 



This section must, unfortunately, be disproportionately brief, as 

 there is little in the habits and histories of these "bill bugs" as at 

 present understood to encourage a hope of destroying them. 



The failure of ochreus to bre&d in corn when afforded every 

 opportunity to do so, makes it likely that this large species will 

 prove only an occasional and temporary annoyance, disappearing 

 as fast as its native haunts are drained and cultivated. Its ascer- 

 tained injuries can at any rate be evaded by raising flax as the 

 first crop on swamp sod, — already a practice with some farmers 

 in our large drainage districts. 



Bohustus, which is known to breed in corn and to winter, at 

 least as a usual thing, as an adult i in its pupal cell within the 

 roots and stalk, may be destroyed by plowing up and burning the 

 stubble; but the same measure would not necessarily apply to the 

 two species parvulus and sculptilis, now permanently injurious to 

 corn in Illinois. . Parvulus is mainly a grass beetle, and probably 



* The beak and head of a single hibernating specimen collected by Mr. Weed were covered with 

 mites. 



t See Buli. 111. St. Lab. Nat. Hist., Vol. I., No. 3, p. 120; No. 6, pp. 12, 28, 29, 32. 



