2 BULLETIN 221, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
numbers of beetles near Wellington, Kans., in 1910, and again in 
1913, together with an outbreak ‘in northern Texas in the spring of 
1910, and in eastern Arkansas in 1913 and 1914, afforded material 
and opportunity for further extensive investigations. 
Numbers of the larve have from time to time been found in the 
soil, always in close proximity to corn roots which were’ more or | 
less eaten, but in no instance have they actually been observed feed- 
ing on corn roots, although especial attention has been given their - 
feeding habits. 
HISTORY. 
In the Report of the Commissioner of Agriculture for 1887, Prof. 
F. M. Webster (Webster, 1887), then a special agent of the Division 
of Entomology, stated that beetles were observed in Louisiana 
during April in considerable numbers in fields of young corn. They 
were found in soil about the stems and attacking the young corn 
plants by gnawing the outside of the stems, without doing serious 
injury. His report on a later outbreak at Cheshire, Ohio, in 1900, 
was the first record of their having done serious damage (Webster, 
1900). Since that time, however, they have been reported as having 
done serious injury at several points in Kansas, notably in the 
vicinity of Douglas, in 1905, as reported by E. S. Tucker (Tucker, 
1905). The writer observed that they did considerable damage to 
young corn at Wellington, Kans., in 1910 and 1913, and severe dam- 
age in the neighborhood of Paris, Ark., in 1913, where several hundred 
acres of young corn*were destroyed in early May, necessitating re- 
planting—the second planting also suffering severely. Again, in 1914, 
serious damage was done in western Arkansas, but none was recorded 
in Kansas. 
Mr. T. D. Urbahns reported slight injury to young corn in the 
vicinity of Plano, Tex., in April, 1909. The adults were cutting the 
edges of young corn leaves, leaving them quite ragged. The infested 
field was one which had been planted to cotton the previous year. 
and was of the same type of soil as a heavy timbered stretch of black 
land adjacent. 
Mr. Vernon King reported that the beetles had ruined several acres 
of young corn on farms near Charleston, Mo., in May, 1913, stating 
that the beetles were more numerous on black soil; in fact, none at 
all was found on light sandy soil. From one to four adults were ob- 
served on each plant and the plants were literally reduced to frag- 
ments. (See Pl. I, figs. 1 and 2.) The infested fields were those of 
recent clearing in bottom lands. 
During April and early May, 1915, a second serious invasion of 
this species took place in this same locality. Mr. King having re- 
signed, the second investigation was carried out by Mr. E. H. Gibson, 
who used the poisoned-bran bait with good success in destroying 
