22 BULLETIN 333, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, 
and the joints were simply shells. The tops of the plants attacked 
were dying. The termites seemed to prefer the pith. Some of the 
colonies were quite large and had attacked two or three stalks in one 
hill. On the 12th of August termites were active in five different 
cornfields. They had not attacked many plants in any area, but had 
severely bored those that were attacked, great hollows having been 
made by them. Some of the injured stalks had been previously 
attacked by jSphenophorus maidis Chittn., or other insects, but not 
all of them. The insects seemed to enter at a scar or break about 
the roots ; none were above the ground. On the 22d of August Kelly 
found that quite a number of corn plants had been attacked by these 
insects and that the stalks were mere shells, having had the pith 
removed. No serious injury appeared to have been done to the 
plants, because most of them were small. By September 6 the corn 
plants were getting quite dry and the termites seemed to be increas- 
ing. In a cornfield on one farm there were numbers of attacked 
plants. This field was an old prairie field and had been planted to 
corn the year before. There were no decaying stumps or wood of any 
kind in the field, and the termites evidently subsisted on the cultivated 
crop. On October 14, 1910, the termites were still active, burrowing 
in the dry cornstalks. A colony dug out contained thousands. The 
ground was filled with their burrows. Their nest did not seem to 
be anything but a series of burrows with young larvse, etc., here and 
there all through them. On November 26 the termites were still 
burrowing in the stalks. On February 15, 1911, with the tempera- 
ture at 75° F. and the ground quite warm at noon, there was a swarm 
in a cornfield, along roadsides, and even from sidewalks in the city 
limits. On May 9 many termites were found in a cornfield that was 
planted to corn the year before ; nine young plants had been injured. 
Single dead stalks sometimes contained 32 termites. 
Similar damage to a living corn plant about 1 foot high, tunneled 
by white ants and not previously injured, was found by J. J. Davis 
on June 18, 1915, at West La Fayette, Ind. 
H. E. Smith states that on May 8, 1913, in a field of corn 1J miles 
northwest of Mulvane, Kans., he found that this species 1 had eaten 
all the seed before germination in about 6 feet in the row, and they 
were apparently working straight down the row. No others could 
be found in the field. 
DAMAGE TO NURSERY STOCK, YOUNG PLANTATION STOCK, AND VINEYARDS. 
There are numerous records of termite injury to young fruit and 
nut-tree seedlings in nurseries, to other nursery stock, and to young 
trees planted in recently cleared ground or soil rich in humus. The 
1 Leucotermes sp. (probably lucifugus). 
