2 BULLETIN 889, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
by Latreille (1, p. 66), who described it and named it after Mozardi 
from specimens received from the United States. In 1828, Say (2) 
redescribed it and published the first figure of the adult beetle. Itis 
mentioned by Lamarck (3, p. 486) in 1835, and nearly a half century 
after its first description it was listed by Melsheimer (4, p. 47) in his 
catalogue of the Coleoptera of the United States, while Leconte (5) 
mentions it a year later than this as occurring in the ‘‘ Middle, South- 
ern, and Western States.’’ Motschulsky (6, p. 241) in 1867 reports 
it from North America, principally in Louisiana, and mentions it as 
common on cruciferous plants, and in 1873 Crotch (7) redescribes 
the species in detail and gives its habitat as Washington, Pennsyl- 
vania, Kansas, Nebraska, and the Southern 
States. 
It is noticeable that in all these records no 
mention is made of the habits of the insect 
either in the young or adult stages, although 
for a good many years previous to 1879 the 
beetle had been frequently taken by collectors. 
It remained for Prof. J. H. Comstock (8, p. 
199) in 1879 to discover that the larva of this 
beetle lives as a borer within the stems of red 
clover, and in the Report of the Entomologist 
for that year he records some of the discovered 
larval and adult habits. This short report 
stimulated further study, and in 1881 Lintner 
(9) gave the known history of this insect a 
prominent place in his excellent paper on “The 
insects of the clover plant.’? In 1886 Webster 
Fig. 1.—Adult of the clover (1()) noted what was doubtless the larva of this 
aes eee. species feeding in timothy. In 1890 Chittenden 
' (12) reported several plants of the Compositae 
as being hosts of this insect, while the same year Weed (13) pub- 
lished a summary of the known food plants and added a few new 
life-history notes. In 1894 Davis (14, p. 167) gave a brief account 
of this insect, and in 1907 Girauit (15) made some interesting notes 
on the act of oviposition. The most recent and complete report 
was published by Prof. J. W. Folsom (16) in 1909. In all these 
published records the insect has always been treated as an enemy 
of clover, no mention having been made of it as a depredator on 
alfalfa. 
DISTRIBUTION. 
At the present time the clover stem-borer is known to inhabit prac- 
tically all of the United States, as well as parts of Canada and north- 
ern Mexico. In 1909, Folsom (16) stated: ‘‘It inhabits the Middle 
YW 
